Saturday

Every Edinburgh I leave feeling a little guilty having not wandered beyond the realms of comedy. It’s not that I don’t want to see theatre, it’s just that there’s not enough time for all the comedy – let alone anything else.

Walking through the courtyard this week I’ve noticed people with radio mics having intense conversations or groups of people will headphones staring in the same direction. Turns out both of these are to do with Invisible Show II – a set of 1 or 2 person scenes that are being played out in the middle of the crowd. Considering how much is going on around you & the performers the wireless headphones work really well – you really do feel like you’re evesdropping on private conversations. Which, with the personal nature of some of the stories, is more effective than a stage bound performance. Really glad I caught this.

A seminar on stress doesn’t sound like an exciting topic for a show but that’s because you’re not expecting the instructor to have a breakdown mid-show & ask you to hide the egg-timer so she doesn’t gave to see time passing. When that happens, well it’s definitely not boring.

Seminar’s crazed instructor may have relationship, job, & possibly mental health, issues but she can guess your personality type with ease & has a natty line in humorous knick-knacks. Watching her offer advice as she gradually breaks down IS funny but it’s also painful to watch & I don’t think I helped by reading out an OJ joke when the man next to me couldn’t without his glasses. I know she’s a fictional character but when I returned the egg timer & joke book to the stage what I really wanted to do was give her a big hug.

There is never any question as to who is my favourite Pappy. Even before chatting with Matthew Crosby today about spreadsheets & Bromley I knew we had stuff in common. Sadly after chatting to him I realise that he has even more in common with a certain nerd I know…

Adventure Party is all about Mr Crosby: primarily his nerdy nature & his love of Nandos. I really liked the FAQATTAQ, which is certainly more accurate, and definitely had a fit of the giggles over the signs of a nerd (which were all very familiar). I’ll be keeping an ear out for that “aaahh” sound that is a total give away too! The fact that his tech dresses up the same is brilliant & the personal welcome is a really nice touch. A really fun show that I knew I’d enjoy & did.

Seeing the Penny Dreadfuls is my only consistent of 4 years of coming to the fringe. It made me very happy to see Humphrey win the best newcomer award for Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher. I was expecting it to be a highlight of my fringe even before I left London. It did not disappoint.

Humphrey is a man made to tell rip-roaring yarns. Dymock was more modest than I expected (more nerdy than the title suggested) but made for a compelling hero. The other characters were broadly painted with an accent & amusing turns of phrase including a small dog called uncle Jack that got his own applause at the end of the show!

But it’s the script that I really kept me giggling: “she had those pointy breasts that we’re all so fond of in the 40s” and “in her white dress she looked like a gossamer angel, but she was running in heels which made her look like a retard”.

I really hope that someone at the BBC is working on getting this on the radio (although Humphrey is undoubtably easy on the eye) this would work as it is as a radio play with minimum changes needed and I’m certainly keen on hearing/seeing it again.

David Reed was the sole Dreadful not up for the best newcomer award. I’m really not sure why, his show is just as good as the others plus it has some wonderful flights of fancy that I really enjoyed.

Shamblehouse is a series of character sketches with no discernible link between them but a similar tone & impressive sense of invention. The exaggerating Spanish man, Milo the flying donut, stuff Prudence, Steve & John Robocop & Kelly Brook the laser gun, Morgan Freeman impression for “other Dave”, only 1 ghost in the world looking for his falcon.

Late Night Gimp Fight

Unique approach to redundancy, Virginity Tango, Bestiality rap, LATE NIGHT GIMP FIGHT.

I like this

To stop myself from seriously regretting booking such a late train home, I has to squeeze in one last show today. There isn’t a lot of comedy on before 2pm, but the tickets are generally cheaper, so I settled on Phillipa and Will are in a Relationship in the Courtyard.

A two-handed this is the over-shared start middle & end of a relationship. The actors sit behind laptops saying their Facebook status’ out loud as the projector behind them displays the passage of time & the (Facebook) status of their relationship. We’re all aware these days of just how easy it is to over-share via social media, & having a particularly online experience of my own, this was embarrassingly true to life at times! Being old there was no Facebook or Twitter when I was at uni but I can easily imagine the combination of the two leads to even more opportunity for drama & strife, which Misshapen Theatre mined for all it was worth.

Despite the modern context the performance was a simple dialogue with the actors performing directly to the audience. “Phillipa” was effervescent to the point of irritation which did make it all the more heart breaking when the relationship ended – though the addendum of “Jennifer likes this” did deserve the riotous laughter it received.

As for me – I’ve done it again leaving the Fringe wishing I had time for more shows. The reviews are positioning this as a year of high standards but few standout performances & I’d probably agree. The Pajama Men made me laugh the hardest. Alex Horne, Tim Key, Beta Males, Suitcase Royale & all three solo Dreadfuls had clever & funny shows. IOA, Matthew Crosby & Richard Herring lived up to my high expectations. All in all a pretty good 6 days that reminded me it’s more fun do laugh with others than alone.

Where everything is “wonderful”

Fracturing your ankle half way through your Edinburgh run isn’t ideal. Max & Ivan have taken this inconvenience and made it part of their show, which with hind sight seems the only sensible way to explain away half the cast being on crutches. It’s not a static show either with action taking place in London and Chicago (who knew there was a passenger boat route from one to the other?) and lots of running, fighting & dancing.

As a double act things get complicated as the plot progresses – for example a confrontation between two gangsters & their molls turns into a 2 person, 4 character, 3 man Mexican standoff (oh & one man hopping around the world) but to their credit things never get confusing, just funnier. Dusty Cervix ad-libbing with the grape man in the front row was highly amusing & it’s always a thrill to see performers trying to freak each other out a bit, even if it does involve stuffing grapes up each others noses.

Max & Ivan definitely lived up to the promise of the 15 minutes of the show I saw at Camden Crawl & make the free show I saw up here last year, with the Beta Males, even more of a bargain discovery.

Yesterday afternoon was pretty courtyard bound which is never a bad thing. Sitting around people watching was just about a strenuous enough activity whilst waiting for Lady Garden to start. Weirdly it turns out that I went to see them exactly a year ago at pretty much the same time. In that intervening year they have lost a member, those dreadful floral outfits from last year & may gone a fraction darker.

Not all the sketches hit the spot – the tattoo parlour sketch is only valuable for the fact that one gardener does the rest of the show with “bellend” written on her forehead – but the slow dancing sketch in particular was great physical comedy, while the horse dating & holiday snaps sketches were just nicely crossing the line into mildly disturbing. For me though there is a thrill in seeing 5 girls in the midst of all those boy sketch groups, even if it is sometimes a hit &’miss affair.

I’m not even sure what I’m going to write about Pajama Men. It’s been 2 years since I first saw them and the “I’m so small” line is still one of my favourite bits from that years fringe. When something is that good the worry I’d that anything that follows can only be a disappointment. How wrong that turned out to be yesterday…

This is the show where my face ached from laughing. A loose plot of time travel & father/son relationships allowed for aliens, sarcastic nurses, explorers, big breasted women from the future &, not least, the “give it to me” bird which has to be heard to be believed. None of this really writes up very well as it’s such physical comedy – the faces that are pulled & positions assumed can’t be described. On top of those there are so many quotable lines (“I only said that to lie to you”) which you’ll be happily giggling to yourself till the end if time. There is absolutely nothing superfluous in the entire hour & it’s a total joy to watch. Can I go again please?

I’d have quite happily gone home after Pajama men with a warm glow & a chuckle in my belly, but still had two shows to see: the quirky delight that is Horne Section & Karaoke Circus which has been on my to-see-list for ages.

Horne Section sometimes feels like a big kids party – there are games, special guests & a fun atmosphere. I loved the boyband song about getting groupies and that the game of connect four included 2 of our party (helping their team win by having ordinary names). The guest were all good too; Phil Nicol, singing “Only Gay Eskimo”, Marcel Lumont and Al Murray who took over the drums for the finale. For sheer variety & fun Horne Section is hard to beat.

I’ve always been a bit of an Edinburgh lightweight & the latest show I’ve sen has finished just after 1am, which is when Karaoke Circus starts! The simple premise is that comedians & punters sing Karaoke with a live band. The added extras are the spectacularly varied performances & the good cop/bad cop critique from The Baron &, for one night only in place of Dan Tetsell, Matthew Crosby.

In our show Colin Hoult gave a typically exuberant performance, Josie Long was a little bit drunk (celebrating her nomination) and Mark Olver duetted with Joe Lycett. Also singing were John Luke Roberts (rather than dishing out random insults), Robin Ince, Michael Legge and Howard Read. The crowd joined in as backing vocalists for comedians & punters alike which was lovely.

I have to say my admiration for Matthew Crosby has gone up after his stint as Not Dan. As the evening progressed his perceptive but highly negative critiques lead to more and more personal exchanges with the singers (particularly with his ex-girlfriend). He took everything he dished out with massive good humour and, I thought, came across really well. But then I might be biased (ok I an biased).

It’s a very satisfactory feeling to finally put a big tick next to Karaoke Circus on my “To See” list. As the Baron would say, it was “wonderful!”

Trains, bath(room)s & wombats

Have started this fringe week under something of a cloud – this is my second attempt at writing up my first day here & my train journey was just shy of being epic. Not only did the train break down twice(!) but we got thrown off at Berwick & I eventually rolled into Edinburgh 3hrs late!

It’s August. That means I must be in…

I’m a little ashamed it’s been so long since I’ve written. It’s not like I haven’t seen any comedy either – being at the last AIOTM was really rather special (despite the Adam Ant jacket) and I’ve come to have a soft spot for FOTSN, although that is almost certainly between my ears.

But this is it. The big one. The high point of the year. My favourite topic of conversation. Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival to be precise.

The Comedy Crawl pt 1

The Comedy Crawl is a great idea – with 7 venues over one weekend it’s like a mini Edinburgh. Most of the comedians are recognisable to a comedy literate crowd & for me it’s a perfect opportunity to review my list, either to tick acts off as having been seen or to add them to the “must see the full show” section for Edinburgh.

The only downside is booze. There is a devoted audience that goes to live comedy that just doesn’t drink – they don’t need it to loosen up & going to the bar runs the risk of missing the best joke of the night. As part of the Camden Crawl, The Comedy Crawl inevitably contains a boozier element and there was drunk heckling from the off. Not much but probably would have been more disruptive if the MC at The Camden Head hadn’t been drunk himself! But anyway back to the start of the night…

Still catching up on missed Edinburgh shows 8 months later…

Everyone knows you can’t see everything you want to in Edinburgh. Shows get sold out, must see’s clash and I’m sure for some people beer interrupts play. The downside of knowing people who can name more than five sketch troupes (thank you Twitter) is that you get the guilt – why didn’t you go see Mr X (or Ms X, or The X’s) when you had the chance?

So eight months later I’m rectifying two omissions in my comedy compendium: The Horne Section and Tim Key’s Slutcracker. Maybe this will keep my guilty conscience quiet…