Sarah Deshaies here with my weekend's worth of recommended things to do in and around Montreal:
- Catch the Car Show before it drives off into the sunset! The Montreal International Car Show is up this weekend at Palais des congrès, with amazing cars on display from the likes of Bentley, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and more. There are virtural reality games for you to try, and K2SO, the snide robot of Rogue One, will be at the Nissan booth both Saturday and Sunday afternoons for photo ops.
- Players from Montreal's boroughs fight for hockey supremacy at the Classique Montréalaise Saturday and Sunday at Parc Jean-Drapeau. Over 500 players will battle it out over a dozen rinks set up over the Olympic Basin. Hockey greats like Chris Nilan (hi, Knuckles!) and Steve Bégin will stop by, and there's a Saturday night performance by rockers Les Dales Hawerchuck and Sunday midday show by the Planet Smashers. The prizes are handed out at end-of-day Sunday.
- Comedy: Joketown is a monthly show featuring comedians get write, produce and perform four original comedies over the course of a few days… they perform Saturday night at 8pm Theatre Ste Catherine. Audience members get to vote their fave performer as mayor of Joketown! And over at Comedy Nest, and is headlining at Comedyworks.
- Montreal's two big English theatres have their 2017 shows opening next week, so take the time to check out two smaller runs this weekend: Snowglobe Theatre presents Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing its inaugural production at MainLine Theatre. This is one of my preferred Bard comedies, all about how gossip can sink or float relationships. Montreal folk group The Bombadils play live music throughout, which is a nice treat. And in Cote St Luc, Mayor Mitchell Brownstein happens to be a huge theatre nerd! He's producer of the CSL Dramatic Society, which is presenting their first drama, Thornton Wilder's picture of small-town life, Our Town, this weekend at the Harold Greenspon Auditorium.
- Turn your snowsuit into a spacesuit at Igloofest with the weekend theme of Cosmos. Friday night's DJ lineup includes include Claptone and Quebec's Moody Jones.
- It's Chinese and Vietnames New Year! Best wishes to those celebrating. The Pointe-à-Callière Museum has a cool show on Asian art, featuring about 400 pieces from the private collection of an American couple. Samy and Myrna Myers picked up over 5,000 pieces of art from the continent during their 50-year séjour in Paris. The collection features Buddha statues, silk fabrics, porcelain wonders - and jade items, which are considered to have magical properties. This is From the Lands of Asia's world premiere, and it's on until mid-March, so go now!
- Take something scary and make it sexy! Burlesque Delirium is at the Wiggle Room Friday night to take on the King of Horror, Stephen King… will IT strip? Guys and girls dancers include Baron Von Styck and Lou Lou la Duchesse de Riere, and stage kitten, Nova Kayn.
- And oh hey! Tune in The Trivia Show (as you do every Sunday) because I will be co-hosting/punning with the great Dan Laxer, 9 to noon. Reference this blog post during your call and maybe I'll *cough* up the answer a la Andrew Carter.