Fringe Benefits

Lawks, it's been an age since I've added my witterings to the interwebnet (I'm still resisting Twitter - I remain perplexed as to why you want to read only one half of a conversation between a famous person you don't know, and a person hiding behind an avatar, whom you are equally unlikely to know. I can't imagine any advantage to taking to the etherwaves myself, unless it's to restrict my usual daily complaints - the weather, my workload, the dearth of decent telly at the moment - to a more concise length.)

I've missed celebrating the anniversary of my arrival in Edinburgh (4th July), but there may yet be time for Contemplating What I've Learned in a Year Away from London. Most recently: that while most of England is being burned and looted, not least half of my erstwhile London haunts, it is incredibly surreal to be watching it on the news, entirely unthreatened by the possibility that it will happen here. The greatest danger I've faced in the last few weeks is being flyered to death by earnest students dressed in ridiculous costumes on the Royal Mile, promoting their edgy new production of an hour-long Hamlet. Set on Ibiza. Performed in txt spk. Via an iPad projected onto a back wall. (If I'd ever studied Hamlet, I could possibly have put a joke in at this juncture. As I never did, and am mainly enjoying my new-ish phone because it enables me to use semi-colons in my text messages, thus marking me out as practically Victorian in my communications, you'll have to construct your own).

I'm not sure exactly why Scotland was riot-resistant, but possible factors include: the fact it was something the English (and possibly a few Welsh people) were doing. Everyone knows that the Scots are furiously independent about everything, so are heavily resistant to joining in with anything the English are up to. 'We'll be different', was the thinking, 'we'll just let the English prove how hopelessly dickish they are by burning their own homes down and smashing everything, whilst we look on and prove that We're Better than Them.' I think the pissing rain also tends to deter all but the most hardy (it's quite hard to throw a brick through a window when the sleeves of your hoodie are totally waterlogged and you can't really get a clear view on what electrical items might be available for looting anyway). Plus, in Edinburgh, there are only about five shops, so looting would've taken half an hour and been shut down pretty quickly by the police. And at this time of year, if anyone had been attempting a bit of rioting, everyone would've assumed that it was some kind of immersive Fringe street theatre, gathered into an orderly semi-circle round it, clapped politely at the end and the Guardian would have given it three stars and decreed that it was 'mildly derivative'.

I can't believe the Festival's over for another year (my second as a resident; not sure if I saw more shows this year than last - the received wisdom seems to be that the longer you live here, the fewer things you bother to see). I've had the joy of being able to put people up in my flat who want to come and see stuff, but without re-mortgaging their flat because accommodation is so expensive. Last year I didn't have my own flat, so everyone wanted to come, but no-one actually did, unless they were here for work and were on expenses. This year, a selection of chums made use of the spare room, and I cooked a fair few breakfasts in the process.

I've sometimes had a fantasy of running a boutique B&B - ie having a really lovely flat, which has one very well-appointed spare room - there are a few in London which I keep meaning to try out, but they're in rather out of the way places. But actually, cooking breakfast, then having to wash up because you don't have a dishwasher, and then battling with trying to put on clean duvet covers before the next people arrive - a skill which I still haven't mastered, despite being officially middle aged - is a bit of a bore if you're as much of a domestic slattern as I am. And if you're paying for a room, then I don't think you'd do the washing up, as all my guests very sweetly have. I have very well brought-up friends, I've realised.

So, despite my intentions of really throwing myself at the Festival this year and going to see everything, I went on a blitz in the first 10 days or so, and saw about twelve shows, then got totally burned out, and didn't have anyone staying, so couldn't be bothered to sort anything out - plus had far too much going on at work - and have had a mad dash to the end for the last 4 days or so when more friends came to stay.

Here's what I saw:
Alex Horne - 7 Years in the Bathroom. I've never seen any of Alex Horne's shows, but he's good chums with Tim Key and Mark Watson, both of whom I'm big fans of, so have assumed he's a Good Thing. Also, I like his look - he's rather gangly, with a very long face enhanced by a big ginger beard. But he has quite small eyes and ears. I don't know why I find the combination appealing, but I do. He looks like a very tall teddy bear. Anyway, his show compressed all the time the average man would spend doing things, in a life of seventy nine years, into chunks. Hence the 7 years in the bathroom, 3 months queueing, days spent kissing, weeks spent looking for things, etc. It was a fun show, mainly enlivened by a man from the front row, who was sent out of the show with a clock for 5 minutes (can't remember which bit of life he was illustrating) and told to bring back 'leaves' to prove he'd been outside. The audience had forgotten he'd left, until he came back in with a massive crash. We assumed it was part of the show till we realised that actually he'd missed the top step and totally tanked it, falling face forward as he was clutching not only a pot plant, but a glass of red wine, which went everywhere. I think he also broke his glasses. It was kind of disastrous and will feature in many people's Fringe-based nightmares - replace your generic 'I've turned up at school/work/the theatre with no clothes on', with 'I'm a very tall man and I've just tanked it down the stairs in front of a roomful of people, then had to sit on the front row for the rest of the show while the comedian makes repeated reference to it'. Mortifying and file under: thank God that wasn't me.

I think the show could have been funnier (it may well have been by the end of the run - people seem to tweak their shows a fair bit as they go along), but was sweet, and on the plus side didn't set the bar so high that everything else I saw fell short. A 3-star effort.

Mythbunking - this featured the brother of my friend Clare, which was the only reason I was aware of it. He and another chap (again, appealingly gangly - do gangly men just go straight into comedy if they're not well co-ordinated enough to play basketball?) did a spoof lecture as the 'Myth Masons'. They're the people who release spurious 'facts' into the world and then get them accepted as common knowledge (for example, the story about Richard Gere getting a rodent stuck up his bum). Their high priestess is 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith, for her services to made-up science. It involved a Powerpoint presentation (at least 50% of the shows I saw this year involved Powerpoint), an amusing audience-participation re-working of the Billy Joel song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' and some very funny ad-libbing. Seemed like a show with forty minutes of good material that had been stretched to an hour, but it was fun for a Sunday lunchtime and I'm sure they'll go on to do good shows in the future. 2.5 stars from me.

Camille O'Sullivan - 2-for-1 night at the Fringe, so I and a couple of work mates took a lucky dip at the box office ('Um, what do have 3 tickets for which starts in about half an hour?') and decided on Camille O'Sullivan. A few years back, she definitely won the prize for 'most posters plastered all over the city'. I got a bit bored of the sight of her in burlesque-style rig, garlanded with increasingly deranged reviews about how incandescent she was. But I was quite intrigued, so off we went. She was playing a really big venue (me to colleague who hadn't done the Fringe before: 'This is not representative of Fringe venues - usually they're the size of a shoe box and are actually a container crate used for shipping Ikea furniture'). The stage had loads of random crap strewn around it (cabinets with knick knacks and odd lamps; disembodied dresses hanging from the ceiling with lights under them, etc) and the show itself was pretty odd. Camille came on dressed in a sparkly floor-length Red Riding Hood cape and did some odd business with a big book of fairy stories. Then gradually discarded all the costume bits (including a wig) and the fairytale elements of the show - no idea why they were there in the first place, as they didn't add anything, and the show was called 'Feel' - most of the songs were about doomed love affairs. She sings songs by people like Tom Waits (whose songs I don't know) and Arcade Fire (ditto). She does that thing where she'll go all whispery and fey and then SUDDENLY SING REALLY LOUDLY. Which works OK if you do it once, but when you do it every bloody song, it gets really annoying. Especially as, when properly deployed, she has a voice that could actually start revolutions. It's incredibly powerful. She interspersed the song with bonkers chat that involved her miaowing quite a lot; I wondered if she really is like that, and found out subsequently from someone who had to interview her once that she is. (My colleague: 'Cripes! She seems high maintenance, doesn't she?') Two stars for the singing; I think she's probably amazing if you see her doing one song in a very small venue - she's possibly a victim of her own Fringe success in that respect.

The Pajama Men - I've seen them once before, in London, and loved them. They switch very rapidly between loads of different characters, who seem at first sight to be totally random, but who come together to form a narrative. A joyous show which had me weeping with laughter, especially when one of them played a bird which basically imitated a woman in a porn film. Doesn't sound particularly amusing, but it was hilarious. Very clever, brilliantly acted and very funny - one of my picks of the Fringe; I spent the rest of August recommending it to everyone. Whoop! 5 stars.

Colin Hoult, Inferno - another one whose poster I saw everywhere in previous years (he was dressed up as Frankenstein). Recommended by Tim Key (ooh, get me, starry!) Went along with my Camille O'Sullivan colleague who must now think I have really odd taste, as this was another strange show. It's character comedy, but all the characters are awkward social misfits. I realised afterwards that they're all actually rather tragic; certainly, the dog who did a monologue about how lonely he was as he missed the rest of his litter, and the Alzheimer's character who addressed everyone as 'Billy', including ultimately an empty chair, reduced my colleague and I to tears, which wasn't what I was expecting at all. The show finished with us all holding hands and dancing round, which was nice. 3.5 stars.

Tim Key - Masterslut. Features a full-sized bath on stage, which he dives into at various points, getting increasingly soaked; these sections segue into short films projected onto a screen at the back. Very, very funny, particularly as he randomly throws a towel at a member of the audience to towel him down after the bath interludes, and managed to pick one of my colleagues' boyfriend (there were loads of us there from work on a jolly); it's always fun seeing someone you know having to be involved. Loved it, and I even got a kiss on the back of the head as he clambered over the audience to exit the venue. 5 stars (and not just because I had to flyer the queue at a subsequent show for his book, and ended up having an enthusiastic chat with Kristen Schaal, aka Mel from Flight of the Conchords. Ooh!)

Disco at the Caves - not a show as such, just a Festival thing. Much enthusiastic dancing to 70/80/90s tracks. A colleague was amazed at my comprehensive knowledge of 80s lyrics. I was depressed by the fact that everyone else in there was 23 - there's that horrible feeling that those surrounding you are finding all this terribly ironic, whereas I'm just going, 'Oooh,Wham's 'I'm Your Man'! This is actually a great song!'

Gentlemen of Leisure - The Death of the Novel. I'd read about them in the Guardian Guide, and obviously as I work in books I thought it'd be up my street. Another gangly man (this time with early-era Michael Caine black-framed specs) and his partner doing another lecture-style show. Fun, especially the sequence where they recreated the writing of Frankenstein, but not especially memorable. I do seem to have seen the Michael-Caine-glasses half of the act everywhere I've been for the last fortnight, though. Am I accidentally stalking him, or is it the other way around? 3 stars.

Holly Walsh - Hollycopter. For those who are young enough, she was a CBeebies presenter apparently. I've seen her a few times on Mock the Week and the like. This was another show where we just asked what tickets were available in the next half hour. More Powerpoint, this time about the fact that she's really risk-averse (she told a horrifying story about diving into a pool on the day the local leisure centre opened when she was at school, and having such a bad nosebleed that the whole pool had to be shut for the entire weekend). She decided to challenge this self-perception by taking part in the Worthing Birdman competition (fancy dressed people leaping off Worthing pier in homemade flying machines), in the process of which she smashed up her arm so badly that she now can't straighten it properly. Funniest part was probably her conversation with her brother, who was looking after her when she got out of hospital. One of those random realisations you have is that only having one arm that works makes it incredibly tricky to tear off loo paper, so she'd asked him to rip her off a load of sheets before he came back the next day. Which led to an awkward contemplation as to how much loo paper she usually used, and whether that was normal or not. Nice girl, fun show (nothing revolutionary, but plenty of chuckles), seems like she'd be fun down the pub. 3.5 stars.

Frisky and Mannish - Popcentre Plus. The big hit of last year's Fringe, but I never fancied it because a/ I didn't know what they did and b/ they seemed to be a bit burlesquey, which by that stage had got really annoying. Why I didn't read enough reviews to get what they actually do (very funny pop mash-ups - eg Kate Bush as sung by Kate Nash), I've no idea. A friend had given this rave reviews, so I was really looking forward to it. It was good fun (especially assembling a Take That band out of awkward 30-something men from the audience at the end, making them pose together - 'Right, you lie on the floor and everyone else crowd round. Now touch each other!' and then mime to 'Never Forget' - they were all very game). But the mash-ups weren't that funny - Ellie Goulding and Jessie J aren't really distinctive enough to create a mash-up out of, and going through Madonna's career phases based on a little-known Shirley Bassey song went on too long and again, wasn't that funny. I like them a lot as performers, but I was disappointed I didn't laugh more. 3.5 stars.

Isy Suttie - Pearl and Dave. Isy plays Dobby in Peep Show and I'd read good reviews of her show, which is a very sweet exploration of mildly tragic love affairs. It mainly revolves around her and her sister's attempt to get a pen pal when they were little by releasing a balloon from their garden with their phone number and address on it, in the hopes it would reach Australia. It in fact reached Dave, their neighbour 2 doors down, who was 25, but became their penpal nevertheless. (Sending each other letters involved the 2 girls going past his house to post the letters in the postbox and much discussion about what the various parties had eaten for their tea). Dave met a girl called Pearl one summer at Butlins and always regarded her as 'the one who got away'. Finally managing to track her down on Facebook years later, Pearl is stuck in a miserable marriage, and they end up having an affair largely conducted through Skype. Lots of it's told through songs. Very sad and very sweet, I thought it was lovely. Again, made me quite teary (think I must have had hormonal issues throughout August), as I persisted in believing the whole thing was true, which is highly unlikely. 4 stars.

David O'Doherty - he's become my 'must see' every year. I love him. Again, shambolic songs with a Casio, and, this year a piano (there was an elaborate bit where he put his chair on its side, then carefully hid the Casio behind it, before going over to the piano, sitting down and confiding, 'I don't want it to see'). His annual 'things that have fucked me off this year' song included a brilliant bit about Boots ads making women neurotic ('It's summer! WOMEN, it's time to stop eating and paint yourselves orange!') and identifying new bits of themselves to hate, which Boots happen to have invented a cream for ('That crease where your wrist meets your arm! We've asked men and THEY HATE IT AND FIND IT REALLY UNATTRACTIVE!'). 4.5 stars.

Sarah Millican - playing a massive venue, she's clearly the female Michael McIntyre. Pretty bog-standard material about relationships, but I did find it funny (unlike the man I was sitting next to, who'd clearly been dragged along by his partner, and spent most of the show inexplicably fiddling about with his wallet). 3.5 stars.

The Horne Section - daft fun at the Spiegeltent involving music, guest comedians (an American guy called Hannibal something; Kurt and Kristen, who did a wincingly funny ventriloquist act; Schlomo and Mark Watson), a Wheel of Fortune, audience participation (all of us had to play Twister at one point), and an audience member being dressed up in a crown and cape and trundled round the venue in a wheelbarrow by beatboxer Schlomo as the finale. The song that Alex Horne and the band did about being a rubbish boyband who really wanted groupies (the final chorus of which went 'We really don't want groupies' made me weep with laughter). Ace - I didn't want it to end, and wished I'd been more times. 5 stars.

Sam Simmons - I hadn't heard of him, but I think he was shortlisted for one of the comedy awards. He's like a cross between Vic Reeves and Harry Hill, with a dash of David O'Doherty, if they were Australian, and with an impressive moustache. I found it hilarious, but when I tried to explain it to people who hadn't seen it, it sounded mental, and not in a good way. Especially when I said, 'I've never seen a man sweat that much' despite the fact all he was dressed in was a snugly-fitting T-shirt, a pair of pants, trainers and a plaid flat cap ('I look like a paedophile on a fun run!')

Abandoman - didn't really know what this was before we went in (we scored some free tickets), but it turned out I'd heard them doing stuff before, but just didn't know what they were called. It's an Irish band (2 guitarists, drummer, trombonist and a trumpet player and an insanely smiley guy with a very fast brain who does the rapping), who do improvised hip hop songs based around the random items people in the audience have in their bags/pockets (top items: a bottle of ketchup and one of those big fat dobber pens from bingo) and the weirdest job anyone's had (the woman in front of us had packaged breadcrumbs for a living), amongst other things. Huge fun, and probably the first time I've ever really enjoyed hip hop. 4.5 stars.

Entering the final phases of the Fest now - I always try to go and see one theatre thing; I just pick the one I've read the most reviews of, which this year was Translunar Paradise. It was a blend of mime and choreography, accompanied by a girl with an accordion. It told the story of a couple's relationship, beginning when they were old and the woman died, and then flashing back to different stages of their life together. It was essentially the first ten minutes of Up, for an hour. Very beautiful, total sob-fest. 4.5 stars.

And finally... Humphrey Ker - Dymock Watson, Nazi Smasher. He's one third of the Penny Dreadfuls, who I saw a couple of years ago, and his show was a very funny 40s spoof with a lot of silly voices (including a small dog called Uncle Trevor, who sounded disturbingly like Adam and Joe's terrible radio dog, Boggins), twists, turns, spies, double agents, Nazis and even some genuine magic tricks. And - bonus! - Michael-Caine-glasses man in the front row of the audience! (He seemed to enjoy it a lot, if you're interested, but not as much as the man sitting behind me, who had the loudest laugh I've ever heard). A fitting way to end the Festival. 4 stars.

So, it's all over for another year. I've eaten too many burgers, drunk too much red wine and nearly drowned because it's been so bloody wet. I've raced around the same 4 venues on a continuous loop for 3 weeks and still can't quite remember the fastest route between them. I've developed an alarming cab habit (up to about 5 a day) and spent more than the GDP of Chad on tickets. I have, as mentioned, flyered Kristen Schaal, stood in relatively close proximity to Jack Whitehall (twice), seen Rhod Gilbert racing into at least 2 shows ahead of me and queued in front of Graham Linehan (at Sam Simmons).

It's time to return to normality: it's freezing cold, my telly's missed me and my sofa's looking particularly welcoming. Today it was the Bank Holiday, the last hurrah of summer. Tomorrow, it's autumn. Dear God, where has this year gone?