Barry on Arthur’s Seat

When the fun of wintry walks wears off….

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh, Good listens, Holyrood Park, Radio 4 Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

January is marching on a pace, I myself, less so. It’s cold out there and has been quite miserable (Storm Christoph was not a pleasant chap even though we, in Edinburgh, only caught a glancing blow from him) with plenty of rain, sleet and snow, and now slushy slippiness underfoot. It’s one thing to slip on ice, another to slip on slush – a slip in slush leaves one very soggy! It adds insult to injury!

I’ve only been round Holyrood Park once this week and then it drizzled most of the way round, yuk. Crow Hill and Arthur’s Seat had low misty clouds swirling round them, but despite the cold and damp and rapidly darkening dusk there were people up near the summit!! Why?! My mind went back to Barry Ferns, he who climbed to the top to perform his free Fringe show every day for a number of Fringes, even in the worst of weathers just in case a reviewer turned up on the one day he gave it a miss. Yeah, he had a point.

Rather than battling the wintry elements I’ve been staying warm indoors listening to favourite Radio 4 bits. It started with Desert Island Discs, a friend had previously mentioned their enjoyment from delving through the back catalogue that’s now available, a few weeks later I found myself having a dig around (yes, that’s how long the idea took to percolate through my brain). There’s a lot to go through, though some of the older ones only have five or ten minutes extracts available, and I was so delighted to spot Vincent Price in the list – it was just a four minute clip!

One wallowy afternoon I listened to Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle, I’d missed it on Boxing Day, so glad I caught it. Well, Mr Gaiman does write a good tale and this one was dramatised with Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) and Penelope Wilton (tons of stuff) playing the leads. Marvellous it was! Staying on the Neil Gaiman theme Anansi Boys was next up; this six part series was first on late night R4 over Christmas in 2017, I only caught about have of it at the time but huzzah, Anansi Boys was repeated this Christmas, thereby making it also available to binge at a more reasonable hour online. Yay!

Anansi Boys is a great read but this radio dramatisation over 197 minutes is definitely one time I’d recommend the audio version over the book! It’s a feast for the ears, don’t have it on whilst doing chores, it’s one for wallowing on the sofa or soaking in a long hot bath. This is the fifth time Dirk Maggs has dramatised a Neil Gaiman book for Radio 4, he knows what he’s doing and he has the cast to do it justice. Just the Anansi boys themselves are a pleasure to listen to, Anansi is played by Lenny Henry (which is quite fitting as it was a conversation with him that gave Gaiman the idea, also Henry helped him with the Caribbean dialect and syntax in the book), Spider is played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Misfits) and Fat Charlie is Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm in Game of Thrones). Jacob Anderson sings a song he composed himself for the show, and he plays it on a ukulele, yay, my man!

Oh cripes, I did not realise how late it is, very. I did pause to watch the new Russell T Davies series It’s A Sin (great first episode) and then later The Graham Norton Show. I shall leave you with another snowman I suspect of malevolent intent…..

He’s just waiting for back up to arrive, then they’ll storm the castle!

A seat with a view

bruceonthefringe 2020, Fringe habits, Holyrood Park, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

As today (well, technically yesterday) was the third Saturday of NotFringe2020, I took myself up Arthur’s Seat to sit awhile and stare out over Edinburgh. I would have stood but the wind was scarily strong, so I hunkered down low to stop from being blown away. Why today? Barry Ferns, for some years this was the day of the big Gala performance (well, he and three other comedians he’d manage to persuade to walk up Arthur’s Seat), it seemed fitting to trot on up and read a bit of poetry.

I say trot, more of a trotting start, slowing to an amble, with more and more pauses “to admire the view” as I went higher and higher. Oo, I took a different route to my usual up near the top, quite daring of me in the high winds and blinding sunlight. The views today were great, so pics were in order,  at least one to prove I made it up there! It was difficult to judge which bit of Edinburgh was in the background but I got lucky – zoom in and to the side of my ear is McEwan Hall and the university area, a smidgen further and there’s George Square Gardens, further again the Meadows and Marchmont.

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And, of course, a panoramic shot from the castle far left, taking in the Forth, across the city to Edinburgh’s Disgrace on Calton Hill on the right.

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Toodle pip!

Halfway already?!

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Aaand here we are at the halfway point (if you don’t include the preview days) of Not Fringe 2020. The sun is out, Fringers would be getting their second breath about now. Most shows here for the full run will have had one of the last three days off. Most chose the Monday, some Tuesday and a few are off Wednesday; Top Tip, if you’re ever coming to the Fringe for a three day visit, the start of the second week is not the best time to do it!

Yeah, Monday would not have been a good day to be off this year. It was horrible! It was gray all day, not a single ray of sunshine, the mist hung around keeping everything damp between the rain showers. Yeuch! Pity anyone out flyering in it, mind at least the flyered would be more inclined to go inside somewhere, anywhere out of the damp.

Tuesday wasn’t quite so bad, it was clearing and in actual fact it wasn’t cold outside, it just looks cold, all that gray! Well, I say it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t to some, some walk round like it’s a lovely summer’s day while others seem to be dressed for wintertime. Yesterday was another step up in the weather, today is the best it’s gonna be for a while as tomorrow Storm Ellen is due to turn up and send the temperature down again, boo!

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know this has often been a Fringing day for me, today and tomorrow, depending on how many daytime shows were earmarked (oh, and shows are often cheaper Mon-Thurs, always a consideration). Indeed, two years ago I declared it to be my Best Fringe Thursday Ever!! (I would do a pingback but I’ve forgotten how) I think I missed the memory on Facebook as today was the 16th in 2018. No wonder I can’t keep up with which day of the week it is! Fringe memories go by the day of the week not dates in the month. Last night, for example, I shared a photo memory of the last time I saw Barry Ferns atop Arthur’s Seat, which was a Saturday, I ummed about whether I should wait to share it again for this Saturday.

Here it is for those not on Facebook (more Fringe photos can be seen there, check me out Bruce T Moose, sorry, I don’t do instagram).

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It was a very good year (part I)

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2013 was the year the Free Fringe got really quite exciting, no longer was it just stand-up comedians in back rooms of pubs, there were proper shows to see! Or, at least, that was how my buddy and I perceived it. Casual Violence: Om Nom Nominous in the Voodoo Rooms was one such show, so good we went to see the company’s other non-free show the next day; the live musical accompaniment was a fine asset!

The Hawke Papers at the Blind Poet (loved that pub, alas, no longer there, that fine old boozer has been absorbed by the Pear Tree) was an interactive murder mystery using the full space of the pub for us to move around, look for clues and talk to the various characters. It was popular for a morning show, we missed out one day but were given a signed flyer and told to be there twenty minutes early the next day to be sure of getting in!

We heard that Death Ship 666 at the Three Sisters was very good and very popular and at 10:45 in the morning! After one miss we made it in plenty of time on the second attempt, great show, dubious venue. It may be fine now (I haven’t seen any shows there for a few years) but the back of the Three Sisters used to have a whiff of stale urinals, watching a show distracted from it, but hanging around waiting for a show to start was not pleasant!

The Free Fringe show that sounded right up our street was Captain Morgan and the Sands of Time at what was the Fiddlers Elbow at Picardy Place – ours and every other bugger’s street. We’d heard it was popular so headed down a good twenty minutes early, apparently not a hope in hell said the guy who came out to count the queue.  The next time we were just over half hour early, so did we get in? Argh, by a gnat’s crochet, no!!! We were right at the door, next in, sorry, jam-packed full!! Now fainter hearts may have given up at this point, not us, another evening another even longer wait (forty five minutes) but, yes, we made it in! Was it worth it? Absolutely! Two actors, one musician (yes, more live accompaniment), lots of characters including Poseidon, a Lovecraftian creation played by the actors together.

2013 was the year we saw the wonderful Aidan Goatley for the first time, another visit to the Voodoo Rooms to see Ten Films With My Dad, a Free Fringe show. It was also the Fringe we finally scaled the mighty Arthur’s Seat, not once but twice, to see This Arthur’s Seat Belongs to Lionel Ritchie, a gala spectacular of Barry Ferns and friends (not quite at the top as it was a very windy squally day) and then Barry on Arthur’s Seat, which poignantly turned out to be the last time he’d do his solo show up there – his knees had decided enough was enough.

Here’s a little collage of pics from the Arthur’s Seat shows. See, you can tell it was a proper Free Fringe show – there was a doorway to go in through and it’s where he stood with the bucket at the end 😆

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