Edinburgh Diary (Part 3)
Andrew Kaye Edinburgh Diary Part 3
DAY 7
After much to-ing and fro-ing, it finally decided to be quite a nice day. The best part about Sunday is the gradual ebbing away of the weekend crown, until by 11pm the place is back to normal and you can finally find a seat in Udderbelly’s Hullabaloo. Quite fancied a game of giant Connect 4 there, but most of the yellow pieces had mysteriously vanished. Probably because they look exactly like the made-up drug Cake from Brass Eye. Who wouldn’t want their own piece of cake?
Spotted the balding one of Pappy’s FC in the Dome, and Stephen K Amos hanging round the Pleasance Courtyard. Also [a 1980s children's TV presenter who shall remain nameless - DbR Legal Robot] letching over some young girls.
“I used to watch you on telly when I was a little girl.”
“Well you’re all grown up now. Can I show you round my dressing room? Shep’s in there.”
“Wasn’t that John Noakes?”
“No, Shep’s my pet name for my penis.”
Shows seen:
Pleasance 25 Gala (Simon Amstell, Lucy Porter, Micky Flanagan, Idiots of Ants) – celebrating 25 years of the Pleasance venue at Edinburgh. The fragrant munchkin Lucy Porter hosts delightfully. Simon Amstell, looking disastrously hungover and genuinely shocked to be awake at 2pm, spins tales mostly involving his attempts to shag 18-year-old boys. Which is oddly what most of Lucy Porter’s material is about too. They must have so much to talk about. Micky Flanagan is likeably blokish with some excellent material. Starts off with the best bit about shirt buttons that Seinfeld never thought of. He stands to be a lot better known this time next year. Idiots of Ants are a four man sketch squad who’ve been gathering up awards and five star reviews like nobody’s business. Slick, slick performances and a lot of cute ideas – the finale involving all four of them romantically serenading a member of the audience is slightly Conchords-esque, but winningly played and properly hilarious. Why they haven’t been snapped up for telly yet is a mystery.
Tom Wrigglesworth. A loveable, lanky Sheffield comedian who has obviously been taking his Kitson pills – he’s even using the same intro music. Part stand-up, part story show spinning the tale of the time he stood up for an old woman being bullied by ticket Nazis on a train. Absolute comedy gold is wrung from the scenario, though it finds time to be quite touching too – celebrating the goodness in people and small victories over petty men.
Penny Dreadfuls’ Never Man: three man team who tread the line between full-on comedy play and sketches strung on a loose narrative. A thrilling tale of James Bond-style super-villainy and Prisoner-style strangeness. Maximum hilarity is wrung from the situations, and the trio frequently go off-book, enjoying far too much the chances they get to slap each other around. Smart fun – they’ve already got a Radio 4 series and the jump to telly can’t be far away, if only they can find a budget to match their grand imaginings.
Daniel Kitson’s The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church. Dramatic monologue with giggles, in the intimacy of Traverse’s second room. Gregory Church decides to kill himself and starts writing goodbye letters to various people. This takes so long that the people start writing back, and the suicide gets delayed as Gregory gets too involved in life to think about his death. Kitson’s second show about death this year, though both are actually massively life-affirming.
DAY 8 – THE FINAL DAY
Last days are exhausting. There’s the inevitable late night before, then we have to be out of the rented room by 10am.. We’re getting the 7pm train home, so that’s a long day bobbing around with very little energy to spare. Plus, Monday is the day many shows choose to have a day off, so there’s not as much to see. We veg out in the Dome for a few hours as the weather goes sunny-rainy-sunny-rainy-sunny outside. I drag myself over to the Courtyard for Adam Riches’ Rogue Males mid-afternoon. Then force down my last Aberdeen Angus burger and meander down to the station.
Fashion styles this year: for the ladies, denim hot pants or denim skirt and black leggings or tights. Literally 8 out of 10 women are wearing this. I don’t understand fashion. Is the idea to not stand out from the herd in any way? “I look exactly like everyone else! My plan is complete!”
Meanwhile, an unusual number of young men are sporting fulsome moustaches. (Not, sadly, toothbrush ones.) Can they all be doing it for plays? Or is Burt Reynolds a bigger fashion icon than I was aware of?
Spotted: The short one from Pappy’s FC near the Courtyard – that’s very nearly the set! One of the Idiots of Ants in the Rogues Males audience (another one of the Ants plays a support role in one scene of the show). [The same 1980s children's TV presenter who shall remain nameless - DBR Legal Robot] again, in the Pleasance Courtyard, eating a baguette.
“Hey, lady! Want a bite of my ciabatta?”
“Isn’t that a baguette you’re eating?”
“No, ciabatta is my pet name for my penis.”
And Daniel Kitson leading a rag-tag bunch of friends and relatives onto the platform, like a hairy pied-piper, as we are waiting for the train to all points south. It’s almost as if he’s come by to wave us off!
Show seen:
Adam Richie’s Rogue Males. Manly character comedy involving sex addicts, anti-piracy operatives, big game hunters and Daniel Day Lewis impressions. Enough audience participation to make me very glad I’m tucked away in the corner. The centre-piece big game hunter skit goes on far too long for the number of laughs it generates, but that’s the character on the posters so it’s unlikely he’s going to cut it down. Fortunately, the Yakult-showering finale brings about a satisfying finish. It’s clearly not the five-star show Chortle thinks it is, but it’s big and brash and a lot of fun. If I heard right, the Comedy Award/Perrier judges were in the audience, but obviously they see just about everything at some point so that doesn’t mean much.
And that’s it! End of the shows! End… of the shows!
But what, I hear you ask, was my favourite shows of the year? Well, I find it hard to judge people I’ve seen before. I just wind up comparing them to all their previous stuff. And I’ve seen Kitson upwards of 25 times, so that takes time. Stewart Lee is on top of his game this year though. And my other half has now been converted to his comedy majesty, so that’s good.
Tom Wrigglesworth was wonderful – reminding me a bit of how I felt seeing Kitson for the first time. A recognition of a kindred spirit.
But the one I can’t stop thinking about is Colin Hoult’s Carnival of Monsters. So many bits stick in the mind. Not just the funny parts, but the magical parts, the eerie parts, the ‘what-the-hell-is-going-on?’ parts, and the ‘did-that-just-really-happen?’ parts. I’d happily sit through it again right now, just to check that it wasn’t all just a fever dream.