As I indicated when I made a map of Free Fringe venues the other week: Ruth, JTA and I are this week back in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival.
This is the first time we’ve been up here together since 2007, a year in which we watched a lot less comedy than we’d intended but did end up coming home and having to explain that somewhere along the way that Ruth, JTA, Claire and I had transformed from two couples into four couples in a complicated but fun polyamorous way. Later, I compiled some of the reactions we’d had to that news, in case you’re feeling nostalgic and want to see.
Wasting no time, we arrived, hooked up with Matt R (who’s also up here for the Fringe), and went off
to our first show: Peter Buckley Hill, of course, with his new the repeat of his 1994 show,
titled “It’s Shite, Not Sh*te”. Buckers was on form again, of course, and we laughed and sang along with all of his classic shite.
Later, Matt and I caught Tesco Chainsaw Massacre, a comedy piece billed as “spoken word”, which had some funny and clever ideas but could perhaps do with a little refinement, and a remarkably wonderful queer performance poet named Sophia Blackwell, from whom I later bought two books.
We were rejoined by JTA for Thom Tuck‘s Free Fringe show, Straight To DVD. This… was simply spectacular. Perhaps the best show I’ve ever seen at the Edinburgh Fringe, Thom’s encyclopaedic analysis of straight-to-DVD Disney movies (interspersed with tales of his sad and tragic love life) is one of the best things that I’ve ever seen at the Fringe.
So yeah: that was Day One for us at the Edinburgh Fringe. An epic start to the holiday.
@scatmandan too kind, good sir.
Our second day at the Edinburgh Fringe brought new opportunities for fun and merriment. Once we finally dragged ourselves from our beds.
A view of Arthur’s Seat, over the rooftops, from my bedroom window.First up, we insisted that Matt joined us in watching the show of Young & Strange, a talented pair of magicians we first saw earlier this year, at the Oxford Fringe. Their act wasn’t quite so magical on a second viewing, and some of their tricks wear thin on the closer-inspection made possible by the tiny venue and the orientation of the lights, but they’re still remarkable showmen and real masters of their craft. Matt was invited on stage to assist with a trick involving separating all of the different denominations of currency into twelve numbered envelopes (1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, £2, £5, £10, £20, £50). I tell you this because it’ll be relevant in a subsequent blog post. Seriously.
Matt R joins Sam Strange on stage to assist him with a magic trick.Later, we watched the incredibly disappointing Computer Programmer Extraordinaire, by comedian Raph Shirley. For all of his good ideas (and he certainly had enough of them to fill a 15 minute set, but 45 minutes seemed like far too long), his delivery was sorely lacking. Maybe we went in expecting something that we wouldn’t get – his “geeky” computer programmer persona didn’t really cut it for those of us who were genuine geeky computer programmers in the audience – but even if we put that aside, there weren’t enough laughs in the show to have been worth the time it took to “get there”, even at no cost.
Whisky and cheese tasting at The Whiski Rooms.Ruth, JTA and I then disappeared off to Whiski Rooms for a “Whisky & Cheese Tasting” event. This was really quite enjoyable, and I was surprised to be able to, under a little guidance (and with the inclination to pay particular attention to the subtler facets of what I was drinking), find entirely new flavours even in whiskies with which I was already familiar. Pairing whiskies with cheeses was also a new experience for me, and – even for somebody like me, who enjoys cheese in moderation but doesn’t have the palate for the full spectrum of cheeses – provided some fascinating opportunities to find new flavours.*
JTA and I have had quite a lot of whisky in the last hour or so.This – coupled with the drinks we’d already had and those we had later – left us rather tipsy. Although thankfully still nowhere near as drunk as Claire was, here in Edinburgh, when six years ago she did the most embarrassing thing in the world.
Matt, JTA and I at Peter Buckley Hill And Some Comedians.Finally, we reconvened with Matt for a dose of Peter Buckley Hill And Some Comedians. I don’t remember his name, but I was particularly impressed with the dry, deadpan delivery of the dutch comedian. If it comes back to me, I’ll come back and write his name in here: ____________________. Look, I’ve left a nice long gap and everything.
* For anybody who’s interested, the whiskies we tried (and the cheeses they were paired with) were: Tobermory 10 with Keens Cheddar; Jura Superstition with Old Smokey; Bruichladdich 10 with Adrahan; and Bowmore 12 with Dunsyre Blue.
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