Edinburgh Festival

It is nice having useful friends, ie ones in handy places. And Jae and Kirsty live in Edinburgh, and so handy for the festival.

As it turned out, I managed 8 shows over Friday evening to Sunday night at the end of the Fringe. Deliberately I avoided (with one exception) any of the bigger names. Just doesn't feel what the fringe is about.

I started with Bec Hill at the Plaeasnce Dome (see below) with Kirsty after she had finished work. 

This woman had great reviews, but we were unimpressed. The conceit was that she was a time traveller. Only problem was that the material was by ad large not very funny. And telling your audience that you are not very good at improv, while trying to do improv isn't really a good idea. We could see that for ourselves.

On Saturday my hosts were taking their kids to swimming lessons and then taking the children to Ogg n Ugg n Dogg. Children's puppetry not being my thing I went into town to get tickets for a couple of early shows, starting with a show called "The Man" by young Partrick McPherson. "Brave, hilarious and side-splitting" said the blurb. Unfortunately none of those things.I don't want to rain on the young man's parade. He seemed a genuinely nice guy who you would want to spend an evening down the pub with. But only in a few parts was this genuinely funny. And a little hard to see where this goes. A one man show of sketches and prose rather than stand up. Feels like a good idea at art school, but...

Finished with him declaring he was bi-sexual, which I suppose is the brave bit. But is it that brave in 2019? I don't think so. Very good looking bloke who clearly spends time in the gym. Being bisexual surely just makes him appealing to everyone.

Then I saw the Barely methodical Group show, Bromance. This is physical theatre. Massively impressive. They have been performing this show for a few years now. Absolutely top notch.

That left me the opportunity to go back to Jae's and then start with shows again in the evening. Also gave me a very scenic walk back through Edinburgh.

Saturday evening started with Jae and I seeing Dan Soder 7.15pm (Underbelly Bristo Square). An American comic with some decent stuff. Would happily see him again. Solid stand up routine but not desperately memorable.

Next up was Leo Kearse 9.15pm (Teviot). We saw him 2 years ago at the Fringe, and I had since seen him in London. Far better material here. Definitely worth seeing. Not PC for the modern generation, but his excoriation of left wing comics was perfect. Just pointed out that they were the biggest capitalists of all. he had never heard of any of them sharing their headline fees with any of the comics lower down the bill. Hypocrites all, but we suspected that.

Finally, Mark Watson at 11.15 pm at the Pleasance. Impressive that he sold out this 500 seat venue at 11.!5, or actually 11;30 by the time it actually started. He was really good. He was the only really well known comic we saw and he was just head and shoulders above the rest. Just so easy going, it felt like he was just chatting to us rather than had a prepared show. (Although I had heard tiny bits of the material before so I know it wasn't improvised!) Definitely see him live.

View from my hosts' attic bedroom.

Spent Sunday afternoon in North Berwick (see separate entry), so we only restarted in the evening with a couple of acts.

Ben Pope 8pm (Pleasance courtyard). This felt a bit like a re-run of my feelings about Partick McPherson. A guy more likeable than truly funny. At least it was solid stand-up. But when my mate Jae got the biggest laugh in the show, and he is a pension lawyer, one must question the talent. That is a bit harsh as we enjoyed the show and honestly I would love to chat to him down the pub for an evening. Seemed such a nice guy, and you get a feel for that in a show where there are probably fewer than a hundred folk and you are sat at the front. All he needs is some better writing.

Rachel Fairburn 9.30pm (Underbelly Bristo Square) ticked diversity boxes of being Northern and female (although actually plenty of those around nowadays. Some decent material but wouldn't go out of my way to see her. But she could fit happily on the under card at my local comedy club. But probably not much higher. A better version of her is Kiri Pritchard-McLean!