Adam Bailey | Photo by Nicola Yardy
Presented by Still Your Friend
Adam Bailey is a solid Fringe choice any year, including this one. He’s carved a reputable niche for himself and he’s so good at what he does. I enjoy the process of warming to each new show. Because, here’s the thing, whenever he starts, every damn time, I always think: Here we go, what’s it gonna be this time? A little on guard at the top, but he always wins me over. It’s his superpower. And Adam Bailey: My Three Deaths is an especially resonant example.
In response to a year of deaths—not his own, obviously, yet!—he meditates on three episodes from his life in which his own death was an imminent—or, at least, uncomfortably adjacent—phenomenon. Despite how intensely the format here suggests stand-up comedy, he assures us that there will be fewer jokes. “Not no jokes, just fewer.” And this is accurate.
His precarious birth, a bizarre coincidence following a snowbound accident, and a freak viral (not the fun kind) episode that landed him prostate on a TTC subway floor. Each of these scenarios are inherently compelling as events, but it is the details and quirks of Bailey’s delivery that affords them a heightened drama. The interstitial anecdotes (on the same subject) between the titular deaths are also vivid and engrossing.
Some points key of interest: Belleville, his mother’s courtship to his biological father, one of her homophobic biker boyfriends (“name redacted”) and her mischievous gallows humour (and his own). His whole bit about her “famous last words” is a delightfully dark and ridiculous running gag—a facetious, and playfully cruel gift to her son and his husband (as only a dying loved one can get away with) that just keeps giving.
Bailey’s manic, naturally likeable and propulsive energy—always on the cusp of getting ahead of himself—drives his shows, so there isn’t a lot of theatrical artifice here. He’s dextrous enough with just his chair and understated shifts in light from segment to segment. He allows himself, though, some striking visuals during the final episode in which he gives some theatrical perspective-skewing and impressionistic little vignettes to evoke the experience of a rather frightening medical emergency.
A closing anecdote about his cat, and the specific way his furry friend helped him to process his grief, hit me right in the feels.
Adam Bailey: My Three Deaths
@Toronto Fringe Festival
running July 2 to 13, 2025
Native Earth’s Aki Studio (585 Dundas Street E)
running time: 60 minutes
