Edinburgh Fringe 2024

A few cuts of comedy…

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Just time for a quick one!! I have a date at eight with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. A few notes on Comedy, methinks. The wonderful Will BF is back with two shows, The Last Gun (last year’s show) and Moon Team IIIV. I’m looking forward to seeing both, yes, both, The Last Gun was very entertaining!

Also back are Crizards, just not together, they’ve gone solo. Eddy Hare: This One’s On Me is on at the Pleasance Courtyard, so a tad pricey! While Will Rowland: Masterpiece in Progress is on at the Banshee Labyrinth, part of the Free Fringe. Interesting choices. I’m interested to see what they each bring, will I prefer one over the other?

For years Gamarjobat entertained Edinburgh Fringe-goers, first just on the streets then also with proper shows. Mime is often the butt of jokes, but Gamarjobat a double mime act from Japan were brilliant; this year just one half is back with Ketch Sketch. Hmmm, I’m not sure if one mime can create the magic that the two had together, we’ll see.

And last but definitely not the least, John-Luke Roberts is back with not one but ten different shows; a retrospective of his solo shows, if you will. I’ve seen five, do I pick one I haven’t seen before or re-visit one that I have? Hmm.

Shakespeare, Gummy Bears and a Gang Bang?!

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This is going be short and sweet, like myself! It’s very late but let’s do a quick trawl through more cuttings, tomorrow is going to be busy so that could be another non-blog day. Crikey, this time next week this year’s Edinburgh Fringe will be properly underway. Aargh.

I did have my cuttings neatly sorted, yeah, that was doomed; so what’s at the top of the heap? Aha, first a slight correction, David Alnwick has a third show, it’s listed under Theatre that’s why I missed it earlier, The Mystery of Dracula. I saw it last year and enjoyed it, he knows how to tell a story!

The coffee and croissant crew are back, yay, Shakespeare For Breakfast and I am still without a ticket! That ten o’clock start is hard work, but on average it’s been well worth getting up for. The talented Hughie Shepherd-Cross is bringing another play up, that’s three in three years! I enjoyed the previous two, Out to Lunch and Ringer so I definitely intend to see Gang Bang.

Great poster applauds for Plotters and Corpse Flower, the blurbs are quite enticing too; and looking closely second time round The Gummy Bears’ Great War has me intrigued. I suspect its a show worth queuing early for to get a front row seat – those dudes are really small!

And last for tonight two possibles, largely helped by being at one of my favourite venues Paradise In The Vault. Now I must away to my bed.

Toodle pip!

A few more notes

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Music. Not content with popping up a lot in Cabaret & Variety, and on occasion in Comedy, it has its own category and an extra one just for Musicals & Opera. I rarely see anything from either category but, always have a look through, just in case….

Oh my heartses, there’s two shows listed on the first two pages of Music featuring the divine Nicole Smit! On the first Sunday evening of the Fringe, she’ll be in the reopened Jazz Bar, for not just sixty but ninety minutes of jazz; I guess it needs to be that long, the show’s called “26” Songs Nicole Cassandra Smit Wants to Sing. Oh, it’s gonna be good!

Nicole is back in The Jazz Bar mid Fringe, this time with Jed Potts doing their thang with country, blues and jazz numbers; there’ll be some sweet, sad, sassy and maybe just downright silly stuff in there, depend how they’re feelin’! There’s two chances for all the out-of-towners to see Aaaah Look Who It Is: Jed Potts and Nicole Smit, Again! The Jazz Bar also sees the return of The Blueswater for five late night shows spread over the Fringe, yay! Which night to pick?! Another chance to see Jed play, and no doubt Nicole will be up for a number or two.

Much as I love all that stuff, I have other needs, heavy heavy riffs and disco (yes, I’m a moose of many musical tastes). Luckily there’s a show that covers both … in Bannermans, they’re back for two nights, Tragedy: All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees and Beyond. It’s gonna be hot and sweaty, and gleefully, wickedly OTT!!

But have any Musicals caught my eye? Just three have tweaked my curiosity…..

It’s late, I’m pooped. A look through one of the big ones tomorrow, ooo. Sweet dreams!

Fancy some Variety with your Cabaret?

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I’ve probably asked this before, Cabaret & Variety and Comedy – what’s the deciding factor which category a show is marketed in when there’s elements of both? And is a music show with traces of humour and pazzazz automatically in Cabaret & Variety? Then there’s magic, and boy, there’s a lot of magic at the Edinburgh Fringe these days! Magic shows are mainly in Cabaret & Variety even the really funny ones, which to my mind could be in Comedy. It wouldn’t surprise me if magic got it’s own category one year.

Yes, I’ve had time to have a look through the first category in the Fringe programme, well, it’s only seventeen pages. So what caught my eye? Which shows have already been snipped from my cut-outs programme?

Top of the second page there’s Accordion Ryan’s Pop Bangers back again at the slightly earlier time of 10pm; I’ll definitely be popping in there at some point. Also back again, a few pages along is David Alnwick with two shows this year, oh yeah, magic shows, he’s rather good at it! Both with PBH’s Free Fringe but one is comedic, the other horror; Alnwick is a skilled storyteller weaving his magic into his tales, Necromancer may not be for those with a nervous disposition.

Over the page and An Evening with Dame Granny Smith made me laugh out loud. Ah, ventriloquism, so not a magic talking apple, then? Have to say, the picture has managed to hook me, possibly a preview ticket. From the E’s I perused right throught to the S’s til another picture winked at me, that of Surreal: The Mind-Reading Show From Berlin! Intriguing blurb, but it does say, interactive, hmmm, and it’s pricey; maybe if there’s Half Price Hut tickets?

I’m thinking that fifty minutes of Tarting About with Blues and Burlesque one afternoon could be quite fun! Part of PBH’s Free Fringe in Uno Mas, a bar I’ve never visited. Even shorter, there’s a forty-five minute show by The Unluckiest Magician, who happens to be antipodean (I have a strange weakness for anything from down under). Umm, tempted!

The final entry in Cabaret & Variety is the wonderfully titled A Young Man Dressed as a Gorilla Dressed as an Old Man Sits Rocking in a Rocking Chair for Fifty-Six Minutes and Then Leaves… 15. Yes, this is the fifteenth time it’s been performed!! I say performed, erm, I’ve never actually seen it. It’s obviously very popular as it’s in the Liquid Room Annexe/Warehouse, that’s a big venue. This year may be the year!

And, saving the best ’til last? Well, certainly amongst the best for this moose, the star that is Aidan Sadler is bringing their self-penned show Melody back again, this time to the Ballroom at The Voodoo Rooms (a better venue than last year). Flamboyant, funny, sharp, mouthy, self-deprecating, I knew all that from bumping into them regularly the last three Fringes, then I went to see the show, and wow, what a voice! There’s a distinct possibility of me seeing Aidan Sadler: Melody a second time.

So there’s some that have grabbed my eyeballs so far; oh, the importance of that tiny pic and show title! Next time, a skip through Musicals and opera and Music. Not that I’m sure whether I’ll be here all August or partly down in Yorkshireland, the matriarch is still stuck in the woods and will need a lot of tlc when she gets out. But I’ll deal with that when it happens.

Toodle pip!

Quite a fair weekend in all

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And there ends the first weekend in June, another Meadows Fair done and dusted (ok, it’s the Meadows Festival these days but it did used to be the Meadows Fair – to hark back to a time of midsummer fairs? Then festivals became much more the rage, but I’m an old timer, so). It’s always well attended but the glorious weather was surely a factor in the bumper crowds that turned out.

There were the usual multitude of food stalls, three music stages (Out of the Bedroom – open mic, Future Sounds for new, young bands, and the Tone Garden, main stage), the Stewart’s Brewing bar, and a myriad of stalls selling allsorts. I was rather tempted by a lovely tactile wooden elephant puzzle, but I left the decision to the gods and when I meandered back later it had gone.

Want an old tin or two? There’s the odd old book, but those playing cards – nice!

The only thing I bought was a pork gyros from a Greek food stall, I must say it was very tasty! I don’t usually buy food as it is, to my eyes, expensive, but I do love pork gyros so I succumbed.

Oh, I did buy something unexpected this weekend – my first lot of Fringe tickets! Yes I know, I usually hold out until the whole programme is officially out, but Underbelly decided to do a sneaky early offer, so I just had to check out their line-up. Just as well I was paying attention, the offer was only on from Friday until midnight just gone. Underbelly usually do some kind of early offer but this time it’s very early (and very short), I wonder how many folk actually spotted it.

The deal was £6 tickets for all shows on each Wednesday of the Fringe, pretty good, huh? I didn’t bother with tickets for preview Wednesday, there’ll be plenty others vying for that spot, but it was good to get expensive tickets for acts I have never seen, because of the prices, on the final Wednesday. They would be Danny Bhoy and Foil Arms and Hogg, yep, I’m fairly chuffed about that; and with several other tickets I got my moneys worth of booking fee (it’s £1.25 a ticket up to a maximum of £5 for one order).

It’s late, time to kip. I’ll leave you with one more from the Meadows Fair……

Just a wee catch up

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Another month almost gone and I’ve only been in Edinburgh for seven days of it; after only a few days back from my European wanderings, I was summoned down to Yorkshireland. Busy, busy, and two sick pooches as well. Oh, they’re both fully recovered now – now that I’ve left.

I’m still working through all the photos, videos and occasional scribbles from my trip. As a matter of curiosity, this afternoon I went quickly through which songs I’ve taken videos of, and surprisingly there are none of Babestation, I know! Really?! Hot Blondes and Lost In You have the most clips, followed by Merry-Go-Round, Mock Marble Linoleum and Dans Le Jardin. Some will pop up randomly on Instagram, but I do intend to put them in some semblance of order later (mind, good intentions can just stay that way).

I am without tv to distract me – it says there’s no signal. It actually happened back halfway through April but as I had a lot to sort out I just left it. I’ve plenty to be getting on with now, so it can stay off, well the tv can, I do have a number of tv series on dvd that I can watch; there’s radio shows too. I’ve been listening to That Mitchell and Webb Sound on Spotify, still as funny and sharp as it was (on the Radio 4 early evening comedy slot between 2003 and 2013). I’m now on series 4, particular favourites are the Stargate sketches and the Old Lady Job Justification Hearings, so bitingly funny.

Missing watching tv at teatime, I dug out my old Coupling dvds, a tv comedy sitcom by Steven Moffat from about twenty years ago, loved it then and still do, especially Richard Coyle as Geoff. Some of the monologues would make brilliant set pieces in a stand-up routine. If anyone does snaffle the cushion speech by Steve, I’d know it from about six words in!

Last night I finally got round to watching Ash vs Evil Dead, it’s only been in a drawer unwatched for, oo, fifteen years?! OMG, it is so good! No, I don’t know why I never got round to watching it before, I think it was going very cheaply when the HMV store on Princes Street was closing down, I did buy a number of dvds at the time. I will definitely be looking for the second and third series at some point. Yeah, so no tv signal but I have plenty to entertain me.

There’ll be plenty to entertain this weekend, the first full weekend in June so it’s Meadows Festival time. The rain gods are being canny this year, rather than a wet weekend, there’s heavy rain everyday up until then, the ground will be pretty soggy and with all those feet traipsing everywhere – there will be mud. Saturday evening I’m off to see The Crow in the cinema, I’ve never seen it so grabbed a ticket for the 30th Anniversary Re-Release, better late than never, as they say.

It’s only two weeks until the full printed Edinburgh Fringe 2024 programme comes out, oh yay. Yes, I’m still being good and not peeking. Okay, so I know some shows that are up through social media, and ones that aren’t, like Aidan Goatley who’s not bringing his new show Looking For Edith, noooo!! If he’s doing it in your area, lucky you, bloody go see it and be thankful! The other Aidan, Aidan Sadler will be back, yay. And very exciting, just spotted this evening, John Robertson is finally doing another stand-up show at the Fringe, happy happy, joy joy!!!

It’s very late so I shall away to bed and leave you with, well, is it just a sign or sage advice?!….