Katia Kvinge: 140 Karakters

If you're going to do a Fringe show, make it an ambitious one. Katia Kvinge sets herself no mean feat when she takes Twitter's character count as her own and aims to serve up 140 characters, all within a single hour.

It's not as confusing or cluttered as it sounds. Delivering more than two characters a minute is clearly going to be a mighty task so Kvinge fudges the numbers slightly, but there are still plenty to be amused by. Delineated into subgroups, starting with two inspired by her Norwegian-American parentage, Kvinge draws on her much travelled life to source a variety of gags and accents.

It's fast-paced, lending the show more of the ruthlessness with material found with sketch comedy than the more traditional character show. Some characters are only there for the purpose of a single punchline, most memorably 'The Girl Who Turns Into Smeagle Whenever She's Complimented', and as most of these gags hit squarely it's a worthwhile twist on the tradition. Others rely more heavily on the visual, which can be a challenge given the sightlines of this room, but for the most part it's good to see the form being taken in new directions. The focus is on material for every character—brief or otherwise—moving the show along from an acting and impersonation showcase and into a demonstration of Kvinge's plentiful gag-writing.

Kvinge doesn't quite deliver on 140 characters, but her skill in delivering the 70 or so she does reach in an hour is admirable and entertaining.