First night at the Fringe

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It’s quite late now, but hey, I only have work in the morning. Just thought I’d jot down a few words about the previews I saw today. Silly, enjoyable, outrageous, Jimicaw, hot, unpolished, entertaining.

Tom Neenan: Attenborough is in Buttercup, a large box in the Medical School Quad. Silly, Jimicaw, entertaining and most definitely needs polishing, but that’s what previews are for, and as Tom has a rather endearing way about him, forgiven. You may be wondering was a Jimicaw is, a bloody good gag that’s what, along with Sample Text, no I’m not going to explain either. A special mention should go to his supporting actor Shutterstock (pretty certain that was his name), a great performance there. Yes, a few slipups today but utterly charming, this moose was well amused.

Next up were Brendon Burns and Craig Quartermaine in Race Off. This is in the Night Club at the Gilded Balloon, a strange room that doesn’t always work well, but it kinda suited them. After a quick recap of how they met (part of last year’s show), but this time with Craig’s perspective on it too, they then moved the story on, with the narrative ball being smoothly bounced between them. As usual Brendon wasn’t without a few tricks to try to unsettle and discomfort the audience, though some snares didn’t work quite as well as he’d hoped – plenty of us were obviously big fans and so savvy to how Burnsy works. And one thing he likes is a twist in the tail, another great ending played for and got. Not sure Craig will ever manage to show his angry face though, he’s enjoying himself way too much.

And lastly, Dan Antopolski has returned, so lovely to see him again, though I’m not that keen on that room, Studio Five at Assembly George Square, a little lecture theatre. Largely I really enjoyed the show but a few parts seemed to miss a bit, preview problems? Maybe. He speaks mainly about his marriage break up and his daughters, always good rich veins for material. I’ve always laughed at his stuff and this year was no exception.

The fingers on the clock are wagging at me for being up so late. Night all!

 

It’s the wrong order, Gromit!

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So I ummed and aahed and settled on getting preview tickets for Tom Neenan: Attenborough and Shakespeare for Breakfast. I have a very finite Fringe Fund (which I diligently put money into every month) compared to a seemingly infinite number of shows I’d like to see. Previews will be the cheapest way to see them this year – I could have chanced Tom Neenan being at the Half Price Hut for a midweek performance but no, he is rather good, so preview it is.

This irks me because neither show is in the right place.  S4B should be on the Friday of the second week and Tom should be around then or the third week, but why? I hear you ask, because they should! Did you (anyone over 50) used to make compilation tapes, which though only 60 or 90 minutes in length would take at least twice as long to put together because the tracks had to be in the right order? Well, my Fringe has a right order too, or it did up until a couple of years ago when after eighteen years of fringing together, my Fringe Buddy up and left to explore pastures new.

As I mentioned in Perusing the Programme, I like to be organised, in previous years I would have tickets for shows throughout the Fringe by now, we would have booked our days off work, probably already used up half our quota of Friends of the Fringe 2 for 1 tickets. Yes, I would have organised everything with the cutouts of shows and my timetable sheet, each show in the right place, enough time in between shows, not putting all the best shows together, spreading them through as cheaply as possible. I like some order, then the spaces can be played with. Bud on the other hand was perfectly happy to merely agree on what to see, actually organising anything was not really his forte, he enjoyed the Fringe too, as long as he just had to turn up.

Now the only planning ahead I do is sorting my Previews out and the odd one or two other. I am still a Friend of the Fringe though it won’t benefit me much anymore. But why not take other friends with you? Oh, I may to a few shows, but they’re not really bothered about the Fringe, and organising others? Oofph, I was spoilt with Bud, it was easy, we both really got each other and wanted similar things. I have a pile of cutouts for shows I’m hoping will be at the Half Price Hut, a pile for Free Fringe shows and a pile of “Buy a ticket or Pay on the door.” It does have a certain thrill to it, not knowing how the next three weeks will pan out!

Hey Ho, it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry, or tapas tray, if you’re feeling peckish!

 

 

 

The buzz begins

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Edinburgh is starting to buzz. Bright young things are everywhere getting venues readied for next week. Already a lot of the recently erected hoardings are filled with Fringe posters. The Saturday papers are giving their tips of who to see at the Fringe and International Festival. The Times even had a two page spread about Brendon Burns and Craig Quartermaine, in the accompanying picture Burns looks like so mild mannered, that or he was quite bemused that The Times wanted to interview them.

The purple cow is once more in George Square Gardens (Bristo Square is actually just finished, so either they weren’t able to guarantee the completion date or cows are no longer welcome, and it’s now a circle rather than a square), a few days ago it was just a large purple blob but I assume the extremities will be inflated by now.

Vans clutter up the streets outside venues as all the Fringe paraphernalia is delivered and set up. Traffic will be lucky to get up to 20mph in some streets, complying with the new speed limit won’t be too difficult through August.

The small supermarkets around town will be full with newly arrived theatricals giddy with excitement at being here at last. God, the queues at the tills will be a nightmare, as will trying to get served in pubs. On the plus side, its fun recognising famous people in Tesco’s and seeing what’s in their basket!

 

Uke Hooting!

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I did intend to write another post tonight but then I decided instead to go to the Kilderkin for the Uke Hoot. Now I’m home, it’s late, so just a quickie! Uke Hoot is a bunch of people who meet in a pub to play all sorts of tunes on ukuleles, it really is a hoot. I first came across this phenomenon a couple of years ago by happy accident.

Anyone can turn up uke in hand, you don’t have to be a great player, just enthusiastic, though be warned – they do tend to play everything at 100 miles an hour! No worries about the music, there is a large bag with all the song books and most songs had the little chord diagrams somewhere on the page.

Usually it’s on at the Kilderkin, down near the bottom of the Royal Mile, at 7.30 on a Wednesday, but as the Kilderkin will be using the side room as part of PBH’s Free Fringe, for the month of August Uke Hoot moves to the Blue Blazer, another fine real ale pub on the corner of Bread Street and Spittal Street (well worth a visit).

Witnessing the Uke Hoot would be almost like a free show itself, or if you’re in town and happen to have a ukulele about your person, do go along!

 

 

 

 

Local prices for local people

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Those lovely folk at Assembly Festival are putting on a special offer to local residents. From the 2nd to the 6th we can buy tickets for a fiver for shows at their venues (proof of being local like a utility bill required). So who was I to refuse?

I’ve just about wrapped up my preview shows but nothing much further. A quick reconnoitre of my possibilities and the venue show lists, five shows presented themselves, utility bill found, five tickets bought (and no booking fee!), huzzah!

One show I’m really looking forward to is The Establishment: Eton Mess at the Omnitorium. I saw them last year the Dragonfly bar, quite odd, surreal and slightly discomforting but still somehow charming and so terribly British. I reckon the Omnitorium will be a great venue for them, as it too is quirky but with its own charms. It came into being last year and a real ragtag bunch of vaudevillian oddities gathered to it, not the least of whom were the irrepressible Boris and Sergey and huzzah, they’re back again. I love those guys!

A cautionary tale.

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Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Way back in the early 90s I went to see a new play by John Godber performed by the Hull Truck Theatre Company, April in Paris. Bloody marvellous it was! A sharp and witty piece about a middle aged couple who win a trip to Paris, well, she wins it from one of the many competitions she likes to enter. They have problems like any couple but through all the sarcasm and moans its clear they do love each other, it’s just dark northern humour to hide their soft sides. The two who played the couple really excelled at bringing the script to life. One of my Fringe highlights to this day.

In any year at least one company will put on a John Godber play, some years have seen as many as three Bouncers and you can often have a pick of which production of Shakers or Teechers to see. April in Paris seemed not to reappear so often and I must admit I wasn’t sure if it would be as good again, but in 2003 it resurfaced in a little venue off the Royal Mile and as I’d waxed lyrical to my Fringe Bud about it, we went.

Oh dear, oh my. Remember I said they loved each other really? Well, these two clearly hadn’t read their own blurb in the Fringe Programme  that it was a “warm-hearted comedy”, it was devoid of love. The vitriol was incredible, oh it was the same script, but said meanly with bitterness. I walked out at the end completely flummoxed by the experience. I tried to explain to Bud that it was really a very good play, not sure he was convinced.

And so that’s why I rarely revisit past favourites by other companies. I couldn’t go through that again! On the other hand, I doubt anything could ever be as misinterpreted as that again!

Another wee rant

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Booking fees!! Finally they’ve nabbed me, the blighters! As a local I’ve always just trotted along to the Box Office in person, thus avoiding what had been a 90p booking charge per ticket (on phone, online or app bookings up to £5.40), so imagine my horror when I discovered that this year they’re including counter sales too!! How very dare they!

At least they’ve had the good gracious to reduce it a bit to 80p a ticket  (to a max of £4.80), but still!!?*##%*!! Yes, I know, its only 80p, but it’s the principle of the thing. Oo, and a sudden thought (I do have them occasionally) – what about shows that are Free Ticketed? Huh? Not quite free anymore, that’ll be 80p, sir? Another thought occurs ( I’m on a roll today!), is this booking fee right across all tickets or is it just at Fringe Box Offices? i.e., not charged at the venues themselves? Hmmm.

Now if the Fringe had just decided to add an extra 50p on to every ticket instead of an additional booking fee added on afterwards, everyone would have just thought, yeah just another wee price rise. And the phone/online/app bookers may primarily twig on, but they would have been delighted too. No extra booking fee always sounds better, even though most of us realise its only because its just been put into the ticket price.

Jeez, three thoughts in a day! The new way of “Buy a ticket in advance to guarantee entry or Pay What You Want at the venue” for some shows may find fewer advance tickets being sold, the paying public can be a very principled lot especially when parting with cash – that 80p will be needed to pay the extra hike-up in beer prices!

Pick a category, any category!

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Oo, not long now. In two weeks time I’ll be just home after seeing my first two preview shows, fingers crossed it won’t be chucking it down like it is tonight. Now is the time to go through the programme again and see what else leaps out as possibilities.

For many years the first category in the programme was Children’s Shows, to be skipped past to reach Comedy, then in 2011 Cabaret appeared! Had the Fringe been devoid of cabaret before this?! Argh, the new prog has Cabaret & Variety, what? When? In 2015 it turns out, and in 2014 Dance & Physical Theatre took Circus under it’s wing. Prior to 2014 circus could be in Comedy, Theatre or Dance & Physical Theatre, some acts probably still are.

Variety acts sometimes still laze in Comedy and if you throw in a few amusing songs then Comedy or Music fit too and also back to Cabaret. It wouldn’t surprise me if Magic is put in with Cabaret & Variety next year (there is quite a bit of it about), but if you tell jokes while doing it, you’ll probably list it under Comedy. Is your head spinning yet?

Then in 2012 came Spoken Word, well yes, they usually are on stage. Ok, so the poets and storytellers generally leapt over to this, unless they considered themselves more comedic or theatrical. Plenty of university academics and scientists like to pop up to pontificate on their subjects, yep, definitely Spoken Word. My favourite entry in this year’s crop just says, Diary, Charlie Dupre, A man reads his diary. Fairy nuff, but when is a word just spoken, how theatrical can it be before it’s Theatre? Or Cabaret? Is Spoken Word more of a solo sport? But then if it’s funny would that make it stand-up comedy?

Are there any rules, or is it just about how a show wants to be perceived?  I think I’ll just go lie down in a darkened room a while.

Who?

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Yes, I am referring to the new Doctor, Jodie Whittaker (just had to check that – one t or two, it’s one of those awkward names like Paterson), a Yorkshire lass and a fine actress. I do wonder if she can conjure up that otherworldly quirk of the Doctor, but so far since the Doc’s revival the choices have all been great, unlike some of the later reincarnations in the first run! And changing the Master into Missy was worked so well, Michelle Gomez was magnificent, so it’s not like the Doctor is the first timelord to change sex.

So, I got to wondering last night whether, in years gone by, did a young aspiring Jodie ever appear in a Fringe production? No, I don’t know, but I like the thought that maybe I saw the future Dr Who in a Fringe production. Maybe there’s a future Doctor performing this year, who knows?! Ok, so if you’re not a Who fan you may not be so tickled by this idea, but imagine if watching a Bond movie it dawned on you that you once saw Daniel Craig in a tiny fringe venue in a production of Bouncers? All famous actors began somewhere so why not at the Fringe?

The Fringe also has plenty of old luvvies at the other end of their careers. Well, when I say end I don’t mean, erm, oops, just not spring chickens anymore?! Rodney Bewes is back yet again, can’t keep him away! Twenty years ago he turned up with a little boat he’d built himself to do Three Men in a Boat (afterwards he was signing copies of the paperback, I still have mine!) and I don’t think he’s missed a year since. Some years later he left the boat at home and put on Diary of a Nobody, the last few years he’s been regaling his audiences with his own life story, forever a Likely Lad, a lovely gent.

And back into the Who-verse, Sylvester McCoy is popping up this year to do a new comedy play – you can’t keep an old dogter down (sorry), or their companions, 2014 saw Katie Manning at the Fringe. She and Susan Penhaligon played two aging actresses in a retirement home, a charming bittersweet play. Katie Manning played Jo Grant the first companion I really remember and I suspect I wasn’t the only one there because of old memories!

Oo, and if all the brouha over the latest Doctor has amused you, check out Jodie Whittaker is Doctor Who by the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre on YouTube, it may just tickle you.

Shakespeare for Breakfast?

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Oo yes, please! Complete with coffee and croissant! As the show starts at 10 o’clock (well, possibly by 5 past 10 by the time everyone’s squeezed in), first breakfast may have been rushed or missed altogether, so a second breakfast is quite welcome. Mind, if I have a few minutes spare I prefer to grab myself a coffee from Caffè Nero at Blackwells. The croissants are on serviettes on the seats, the folk who don’t want one generally place them on the next seat along until if you’re one of the later arrivals you’ll have to unearth the last seat on the row from the mound of croissants. TOP TIP if you’re doing the Fringe on a small budget, hang about afterwards and clear up the spare croissants, a packet of ham slices and a bit of cheese, sorted!

You may have noticed how I used the word “squeezed” earlier, I do not lie, the show is often sold out and the seats are very narrow, there is NO room for long legs, big bottoms or wide shoulders. Depending on the size of your neighbours you may find yourself sitting slightly uncomfortably  to slot in with them. Be assertive! Get yourself comfy and sit your ground (unless you’re sitting next to me!). And don’t think you can leave a crafty seat free for some breathing space, as the venue fills up everywhere is scrutinised for room, that seat will be filled!

Another TOP TIP, on your way into C+1 be sure to find yourself a sturdy flyer if you haven’t been organised enough to remember your fan! Oh yes, it’s gonna get warm, really warm, but you can at least take some comfort in the fact that you would be way hotter if the show was still in it’s original venue C+3.

By now you may be wondering if Shakespeare for Breakfast is really worth the early rise, the pain and discomfort, but yes, it is, well, most years it is (I cannot lie there has been the odd dodgy year). Indeed this is testimony to how good C Theatre are!! For myself and many others, this is one of our great Fringe traditions, this is sooo Fringe! I haven’t missed one since my first in 2002, a panto of Romeo & Juliet. “Hello Nursey, ‘ows your floury baps?” we’d all holler whenever the dame, sorry, Nurse came on.

It is a great way to start a day at the Fringe. Yes, but you haven’t said anything about the show itself, well, it’s Shakespeare with a twist. Sometimes it’s based on one of his plays, sometimes it takes characters from all over the bardverse and puts them in a modern situation. It’s Shakespeare and it’s silly and there’s always a song at the end. Nuff said.