Grubby Little Mitts: Hello Hi

I know my onions, yes I do

bruceonthefringe 2023, a rant, Comedy, Edinburgh Fringe 2023, Fringe Awards, Sooo fringe, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Have you seen the price of onions lately? Okay, so I don’t pay much attention to the price of staples usually, but when a bag of three, yes, three is £1.10 in the local Tesco’s!! In a bag too (why?), I prefer to pick my own, especially at that price (bagged vegetables have a nasty habit of having the odd dodgy one, don’t you find?) No, I didn’t buy any onions there. And breathe.

I missed the anniversary of the first Bruce On The Fringe Fringe Awards yesterday. I say I missed, hmm, missed or procrastinated the entire day?! The double Fringe there was deliberate, by the way, in case of any non-Fringe Awards I choose to bestow in the future, you never know. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook (and why not??) you may have noticed the latest pic on my storyline featuring flyers and cut-outs, and so, without further ado,

Mesdames et monsieurs, ceux entre et ceux au-delà, welcome to the Bruce on The Fringe Fringe Awards 2023!

Best Epic Fantasy Adventure: Shadow Kingdom

Best Double Feature: Voloz Collective with The Man Who and The Life Sporadic

The Pugwash Trophy: Max Norman: A Pirate’s Life For Me

As the Actress Said: to the Bishops

Best Flounce: Yippee Ki Yay

Best Bedcaps: Finlay and Joe: Past Our Bedtime

Best Blood and Gore: How to Eat a Bear

Best Game of Jenga (ever): Laser Kiwi: Rise of the Olive

Best Docucomedy: The Last Gun

Loveliest Fringe Thing: Mark Twain’s The Stolen White Elephant

Best Fringe Follow-up: Grubby Little Mitts: Hello, Hi

Most Beguiling Poster: Ginzel’s Little Cordoba: A Double Bill

Best Aidan on the Fringe: joint winners, Aidan Goatley and Aidan Sadler

Yes, maybe a couple pictured didn’t make the final cut but they were so so close. And what? No Best Musical Moment nominees this year?! Nope, my favourite, hands down winner will be on Instagram shortly. That’s it from me, and thank you to everyone who brought shows to Edinburgh this August, I may not be real, but for a few weeks there you made me feel alive ❤️

Three morsels of Fringey goodness

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Three days in, twelve shows seen. It’s tricky balancing wanting to be Fringey, writing about the Fringeyness and getting enough sustenance and sleep. It’s late just now, I had intended to be already in the Land of Nod but a few quick mentions before I lay my head.

Second day of previews I started with Ringer at Underbelly Bristo Square, picked as it’s by the same chap who wrote the very last show I saw last year, Out To Lunch (I was rather cajoled into seeing it as one of the few punters in Bristo Square, but it was very good). Another sharp, dark comedy; maybe a tad confusing to follow at the start but the storyline got underway, great fun and great performances by both actors. Same as last year’s, I’ll give it 4 stars.

I bumped into Grubby Little Mitts when they were flyering before the show, so lovely to see Sullivan Brown again, he said the new show is even better than last years – a bold claim! He was right though. The two of them (Rosie Nicholls is the other mitt) have a great chemistry, the sketches come fast and furious, there’s darkness and light and all sorts of bonkers in between. So that’s five stars plus another little star for Grubby Little Mitts: Hello Hi.

I want my bed so just one more, Shadow Kingdom by Mochinosha Puppet Company; that’s puppets as in Japanese shadow puppets, over four hundred are used! Another big epic story, last year’s was sci-fi, this year it’s fantasy (but again with a message in there) with plenty of adventure, hey, they paraphrase that line from Princess Bride! As last year, the flyer is actually a short comic book, and they have badges, yay (for a small donation), that’s 4½ stars from me. You might think shadow puppetry isn’t for you, maybe not, I wondered the same last year and am glad I gave it a chance.

G’night, sweet dreams!

Make me an offer, please

bruceonthefringe 2023, Comedy duos, Edinburgh Fringe 2023, Previews, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I have Fringe tickets, woohoo. I mentioned as much at the end of my last blog post, I have even more now, thanks to an email update from Underbelly. I just wish I’d opened and read it sooner – I’d have saved a few quid! Only a few but it all adds up. Underbelly had announced a special offer of £6 tickets for shows up until 10th August, one just had to be organised enough to buy them by midnight tonight, oops. I only read the email after I had booked a wodge of preview shows; I did feel a tad disgruntled, my own fault, I know, I really should check my emails more regularly.

At least I’ve managed to save on booking fees, that old bugbear! The Fringe and Underbelly box offices have once again capped the booking fees at £5 per transaction (£1.25 a ticket). Organisation is key, fifteen tickets in and a tenner spent on fees, not that I see that as a saving, just less irksome.

Assembly have for a number of years now done an offer for locals at the start of the Fringe, they just like to announce it quite late on. To make us sweat or just so’s we might have already paid full whack? There’s a number of Assembly shows I quite fancy, that I may fancy even more with a cheap offer, only one has made my must-see pile.

My favourite comedy duo from last year are back, and with a new show, Grubby Little Mitts: Hello, Hi. Well, I had to get a ticket, this is one second outing I’m confident will be as funny, clever and dark as the first (not always the case).

It’s a tad late, I shall away to bed. I leave you with a peek at my possibilities…..