Edinburgh 2008 - Day Four

Wednesday 6th August 2008 (aka the day it didn't stop fucking raining):

Well, it's just a few days now until the Fringe Programme comes out for 2011. (Eep! Now it's only a day!) So I'll relive the wettest day I've ever spent in Edinburgh (everyone please remember your wellies!!).

We began the day by getting absolutely soaking wet (our hotel was a fair distance from the City centre and I think we may have jumped on a bus or into a taxi but it didn't make much difference). We then saw Golden which was a modern day re-telling of Macbeth. I think it was quite good. It was a very small venue with seats on all four sides which is generally quite dynamic.

After that we had to get a taxi back to our hotel to get changed before getting a taxi to an old church to see Kes. This production was by schoolchildren who were excellent (especially the main little boy playing Billy - perfectly heartbreaking) and their teachers who were not! I enjoyed it but not as much as the film.

Then we found some lunch and bought some ponchos (you may look silly but you need a poncho for proper Edinburgh rain!).

Next was Columbinus which we saw in a Quaker-y place. (The Quakers seemed very nice.) It was a very interesting play about the events that led up to the school shooting in Columbine. I loved the first half but was less bothered about the second half.

The play began with all of the kids (about fifteen to twenty of them) getting up, having breakfast, getting dressed and going through their normal routines. It was very ordinary but remarkable in its everydayness. I love stuff like that (like Mrs Dalloway and The Hours). I'm not sure that it made me think anything new or different about the shootings but it was a really well done play. (Usually at the Fringe you have very little time to process everything right after it's happened. You generally have to save things up and think about them later on when you get a bit of time. Conversely, you may end up having an epiphany in a split second. That's why the Fringe is so great!)

The nice Quaker man offered us all a quiet room to sit and have a think/pray in but there was no time. We went to TGI Friday in a desperate effort to cheer ourselves up. The play had been heavy; we were still soaking. My trainers were absoutely appalling waterlogged. It didn't matter how many times I changed my socks it was all squealchy and gross. I was ready to cry (knowing me, I probably did!) but lovely Stewart Lee was next.

We went to the Stand (aah) for Stewart Lee: Scrambled Egg. This wasn't a proper show; it was Stew doing material that would end up on Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle S1 (similarly Vegetable Stew was the preparation for SLCV S2) but that was fine as it was advertised as such.

The idea was that Stew would have a little egg box with six 'eggs' in - each with a different topic (lasting about a half an hour) and he'd do two for each show of the run. (Or something like that; it was ages ago now!) Anyway, he'd spent a long time making the eggs and the box and it was a great idea however, he hadn't come up with enough material to do this (three hours - the length of the entire series) but he did have enough for a brilliant hour.

It wasn't as good as 41st Best Stand Up (the first SL show I saw where I just fell in love with him - comedically!) but it was still great: this was the first time I heard a lot of the stuff that ended up on the show including Radio 4 comedy, celebrity hardbacks, Franklin Ajaye comedy record and Del Boy Falling Through The Bar (which was part of 41stBSU) too.

The main drawback (other than still being completely sodden!) was that we'd got there late and there were no seats left (bear this in mind for Stand gigs!) and we had to stand up. While standing is perfect for music it's rubbish for comedy. When you collapse into giggles there's nothing solid to collapse into which means that you just have to absorb your own laughter (if that makes any sense at all!) which is hard at the best of times but with no sleep and very damp - it's just no fun. (If it had've been someone crap and not lovely Mr.Lee it would've been horrendous!)

Then we met up with one of R's lovely friends for some hot chocolate. He and P caught up in The Conan Doyle and Nat and I got a taxi (we got taxis everywhere that day! They're cheap in Edinburgh and we were past caring anyhow) to see Grease Lightnin' Drag Show (it had Grease, men and drag and Australians!). It was pretty silly (erm, unsurprisingly) and maybe not as good as I'd expected/hoped it may be. My main quibble was that they were just miming. I would've rather seen them sing (but I think it may have been partly a copyright issue, not sure!). Anyway, it was nice to disappear off for a bit of fun with Nat! (And I'm sure equally good for R to be away from us and our silliness!)

We finished our night at the Stand Up For Freedom Amnesty International benefit show hosted by Ed Byrne. I'm not overly bothered about Ed but he's such a lovely guy and deals with the compere role perfectly - you can't not like him!

I can't remember the order but the comedians we saw that night were:

Mark Watson - doing the same stuff we'd seen him to a couple of days before; still brilliant though (and you never know who's going to turn up at these things when you book [well, depends when you book, I suppose] so do take the chance that you'll see some bits of people's sets twice; this may seem a bit annoying but I find it fascinating to have the opportunity to see the comedian's skills at making the material fresh every night. When you see something again you can see the comic is truly excellent at their craft.)

Sarah Millican - again, we'd seen Sarah Millican (at a Juppcast) and we were going to see her again that week (we'd also seen the same material at a pub night a million years ago; I'd go on to see Not Nice again. It was amazing though!)

Alan Cochrane -funnily enough, I liked Cochrane a lot more here than I had at the Stand. The lateness of the hour was the same but perhaps for a huge venue like the Assembly on the Mound (one of the big rooms there anyway!) he simply tried harder than he had hanging out with his friends. My opinion of him seems to change a lot. I wouldn't go out of my way to see him but I do like a lot of things about him. Hmm.

Otis Lee Crenshaw - This was the first time I'd seen Rich Hall as Otis and I loved him. Very enjoyable.

I think Wilson Dixon was there too but I'm not certain!!

Any that was it - our day ended by waiting (in the rain, by puddles/lakes) for a taxi. I had never been so glad to take off my clothes. We saw some amazing stuff that day but because of the weather it was the worst day of the Fringe (still a ridiculously brilliant day compared to ordinary days at work etc!!)