If you've visited Medieval Times as a kid, you'll know that walking into the arena as an adult is comfortably nostalgic. The air smells faintly of horse stable and rotisserie chicken and the tiered seating is outfitted in the colours of six Knights of the Realm that will compete for the King's honour. Once you don the paper hat, you've effectively given yourself over to the revelry that is to unfold.
It had been about fifteen years since I first experienced the dinner and tournament and despite a proclamation announcing a new show, not much has changed. The horses are as majestic as ever, yet the performances are parroted and rote. The tournament features the same formulaic certainty that doesn't reach an exciting pitch until the final act.
Each knight is paired with a section of the audience for competition through a series of challenges. After a collection of scenes (hooking rings on lances, striking a bullseye), the tournament climaxes in jousts and hand-to-hand combat that determine an ultimate winner. Alongside the King's tournament, there is a minor subplot which introduces an outside visitor who threatens to steal the throne.
You have to look hard to identify the new elements scattered throughout. The opening sequence, which features a Liberty Horse performing without rider, emphasizes the beauty of the animals — it's a fitting new start. But while the lighting certainly has been given an upgrade, the new score and costumes don't make quite the same impression.
What is done well are the choreographed jousting and battle scenes that determine the triumphant household. The fairly pedestrian challenges that build up to this final display cannot help but fall in the shadow of these energetic fight scenes. Evidently, this is where the most attention has been paid. Audiences have been thrown more action and more violence.
It's a little disappointing that, given the recent popularity of Games of Thrones, the tournament wasn't completely overhauled in favour of a narratively driven show, rich in story and detail. Audiences can handle a presentation more challenging than the current "back to basics" format, with its cardboard-cutout knights. That said, the popular entertainment feels more like a sporting event, with its mentions of birthdays and visiting groups, rather than theatre.
The environment is similar to what you'd expect, complete with wenches who promise to deliver dragon's blood alongside your sodium-heavy chicken and ribs. It's undeniably fun to eat with your hands, and they're generous enough to provide some non-period hand wipes.
Action and sport, rather than narrative and nuance, reign supreme in the newest form of dinner and tournament at Medieval Times.
Photos by Brian Morton
Squirrelled away on a second floor on West Queen West, and graced with its own line-up, you'll find Nyood Restaurant's sister bar--open Fridays and Saturdays, there are bar rail drinks, DJs, and bitchy quotes on the walls.
It's no mystery why 
The scene: The Grand Estate of Count Victor Uber-Weiner and Countess Clotilde Hagen-Das (2026 Yonge St). The fateful night begins with a three-course dinner, including such delights as shrimp tapenade, beef ribs in Guinness gravy and, my personal favourite, chocolate brownies drenched in Bailey's Irish Cream chocolate ganache. As dessert is served, the characters begin to make their way into the dining room, introducing themselves to the diners and absorbing each table in light chit chat.
The scripted show begins when the Count - who was absent at dessert - is found dead in his study. Luckily, the famous Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Watson are on the case. After establishing the where and the how of the murder, it's the audience who must determine the whodunit. With the help of clues subtly dropped throughout the show, audience members are asked for their guesses and are awarded prizes if they correctly name the murderer and the clues that led them to their guess. In case you'd like to see this performance, I won't go into too much detail about the storyline, but I will say it's equal parts clever and corny.
The audience demographic is all over the map. From a large group of 20-somethings celebrating a birthday, to an even larger group of elderly women in red hats and purple dresses, the show seems to cater to almost anyone (especially as a 
Mysteriously Yours... puts on four shows per year, each running for three months. Shows generally play Thursday through Saturday, with the occasional Wednesday thrown into the mix. Dinner is optional and on a Thursday or Friday night, will cost you $66.00 (the price increases to $71.00 on Saturdays). If you're just interested in seeing the show without the meal, tickets go for $40.00 on Thursdays and Fridays and $45.00 on Saturdays. 
This week in theatre rounds up the most noteworthy live theatre playing right now in Toronto. It includes just-opened shows as well as productions that are about to close.
This new gym offers "barre fitness" classes (all the rage in NY and LA) which combine dance, core work, and yoga for a workout that's sure to leave you feeling the burn--if you can keep up, that is.
This is a big weekend for sports fans. 
As you've already likely heard, the Calgary Stampeders and their posse of horses are in town this week for today's Grey Cup match. There was a minor controversy on Thursday when staff at the Royal York decided not to let Marty, a 15-year-old dark brown stallion, walk through the hotel doors as per a 64-year tradition.
This week, the 
Though the Gardiner Expressway, then "Superhighway 'A'," the Don Valley Parkway, and 401 were eventually built, many of the roads that would have penetrated downtown were nixed and replaced with rapid transit lines. One road dubbed "Superhighway 'E'" would have run in a trench just north of Bloor, exactly following the current route of the subway. At Church, it would have turned down the Rosedale Ravine, across the Don, and through the east end along Gerrard. Instead of an interchange subway station at St. George and Spadina, we would have had a major road junction. The subway, if it was ever to be built, would have gone been on track in the highway's median, à la parts of the Spadina line.
WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK:
MUSIC | 
We'll find out this morning if 
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After leaving the film scene to pursue a career in food, chef Carey Wesenberg found that running a kitchen is a very similar production process. Building a set, casting the characters, and adapting to changes translated well into establishing the beloved 
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RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS
Holiday party season is rapidly approaching, and for those who are tasked with throwing their own elegant, need-to-impress fetes, it begins with the minutiae of decor, finger foods, and perhaps most importantly, libations. If you're tired of either attempting to mix your own drinks (an exercise in futility as the night wears on), or hiring someone off the street (i.e. Craigslist), consider 
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Walking into the clearing across from the abandoned WWII munitions factory at 163 
Sponsored by vintage shop 
Joined by Estonian performance art group 
The hour-long "smash" involved performances by the characters of Non Grata, such as a young dark-haired girl in a flowing white dress, who began the afternoon by lighting the car on fire with a flaming stick. 
Another anonymous member of Non Grata walked the grounds in a black balaclava with two small balloons attached to the head--a criminal Mickey Mouse--with a sign that read, "Smash it, baby, smash it" while a second girl in a long black lace gown casually presented observers with weapons such as sledgehammers, mallets, hammers and a pickaxe, inviting them to destroy the car. 
Miraculously, no one caught a pickaxe in the eye as the group stood for an hour, taking turns at shattering glass, stabbing rubber and, eventually, flipping the car on its hood. At one point, I overheard someone say, "This is so fucked up." It's not, really, when you take into account that it was a pre-arranged art piece. Add in a desensitized crowd, and it was almost funny.
At the end of the hour, once the car had been flipped and destroyed, Silver Teeth (as Kantor could be dubbed) had dropped the electric guitar. He hopped on top of the belly-up car with his red flag, smiled and rebel yelled. Anarchists win, his gesture seemed to say, with consumerism (as embodied by the car) having been effectively smashed. The revolution had begun (for the day). 
The two-part event continued three hours later at The Theatre Centre Pop-Up (1095 Queen Street West) with local performance and video artists such as 
Non Grata has performed the piece worldwide, relying on their "floating" membership which allows artists to drift in and out of the group depending on their location. The group's motive to recreate real art is realized by allowing artists to experience complete immersion in their roles through anonymity. STORM GENERATION takes that anonymity to a new level, calling for the breakdown of capitalism through a controversial cult-like initiation ceremony that involves human branding. Yes, branding.
With Kantor back on electric guitar, Non Grata's Mickey Mouse Balaclava man stood in the center of the room, shouting in heavily accented English through a megaphone, "We are the Storm Generation. Do you love the Storm Generation?" The woman in the white dress from earlier circled the room repeatedly with a blowtorch, heating up an S-shaped rod of iron, a staple of the piece. A member of the troupe was pulled from the crowd--the young girl in the black lace gown.
"Oh God, are they going to brand her?" I whispered to my friend, as the blowtorch and the iron rod made its way back to the centre of the room. It's important to note that at each of Non Grata's performances of STORM GENERATION, participants are willing; occasionally, even people who are unaffiliated with the group volunteer.
And with that, Non Grata had left their mark, and a strong message, on Toronto.
Rob Ford is on his way out as mayor of Toronto. Justice Charles Hackland ruled this morning that Ford breached the 
This new King West gym is trendy in every sense of the word--from its modern, light-filled design, to the array of au courant fitness classes it offers. Don't think it's all for show, though; with its gravity training, spinning, barre and other fitness classes, you're sure to score a solid workout. 
Toronto's 
As expected, the Twitter reaction to 
Momofuku's sister bar might suffer for being associated with such a hot restaurant, and indeed, its upstairs location means it could become a haute waiting room of sorts. But the service is good, the cocktails are better, and whetting your appetite over a drink definitely beats waiting in the cold.
Yesterday residents living near Harbord and Clinton got an up close look at the 
