Mittentime Revue spreads Island cheer

PEI expats, including Tanya Davis and Jenn Grant, bring a musical gift from the Island: Saturday’s Mittentime Revue

by Holly Gordon

If you're hiding under the covers to avoid shopping, baking or card sending, be sure to dress in your woolies and hop out of bed for Saturday's Mittentime Revue---a cabaret show that'll de-stress you with its carol medleys, storytelling, poetry and songs.

"It's meant to take the piss out a little bit, and also just kind of celebrate the more light-hearted side of Christmas," says organizer Tanya Davis, a PEI native.

The Revue started on the Island three Christmases ago when artists returning home for the holidays---Davis, Jenn Grant, Catherine MacLellan, Daniel and Patrick Ledwell, Rose Cousins and Kinley Dowling---thought it would be fun to put on a show for their families and friends. Davis says they decided to start the tradition in Halifax this year before heading home (the PEI show is already sold out) because they're all here anyway.

"We started doing it for fun, so it's fun for us, too," says Davis. "We have a set list and what we're all going to do, but there's a lot of joking and laughing and horsing around."

For Halifax's Mittentime show, artists MacLellan, the Ledwells, Don Brownrigg (the only non-Islander), Dowling, Cousins and Davis plan on whisking you away for an evening of cabaret shenanigans---and Christmas costumes.

"Last year I was a present," says Davis, though she's not sure what she'll dress as this year. Davis adds that the show's been described as "'a school recital for one's grandparents,' or something," which she laughs at.

"I think Christmas can get pretty stressful for a lot of people. This is not a stressful show. This is an unwinding kind of show."

Davis assures that the artists will have a rehearsal for "some level of decorum," but it sounds like the less rehearsing there is, the better.

The Mittentime Revue

Saturday, December 19, 8pm$15 adv/$20 door

The Company House, 2202 Gottingen Street

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