Fringe Fest welcomes risk taking and testing the audience, but Pinter Stew by Third Wall Theatre might ask just a bit too much background knowledge of British playwright Harold Pinter’s oeuvre from its audience. Without it, the play leaves you confused. The show is presented as a series of mostly-unconnected scenes that are almost impossible to piece together, and that probably don’t piece together. The extended centre part about a family being interrogated is the longest connected scene in the play, but just as you begin to piece it together the play moves on to an overly long taxi cab scene. The viewer unaware of Pinter’s works is left in the dark as to what’s supposed to be going on. …

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 Sketch comedy is a Fringe mainstay, and the charmingly funny Pack Animals proves why. Created and acted by Holly Brinkman and S. E. Grummett, the sketch show combines cheeky Canadiana, cutesy singing, and frank yet funny discussions on queer identity and sexuality all within the premise of a Scouts-like summer camp with some serious feminist leanings.

Pack Animals is definitely geared towards a twenty- and thirty-something audience, and if you fall into that Millennial age range you’ll find a lot to enjoy. Their recurring bit where they recreate the iconic Hinterland Who’s Who—special shout-out to the virtuosic recorder playing—but profile the various types of men you probably don’t want to bring home somehow evokes both childhood nostalgia and unsavoury memories from the club. The accuracy is part of what makes it so funny—we all know men like that. The animal puppets add a lot. …

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