Last month I went on a four day mini-holiday to Edinburgh. I avoid the word mini-break because it was far from a break, there was lots of walking, a fair amount of drinking, early mornings, late nights and lots and lots of doing of things.
To set the scene, since 2007 I have been on five holidays, four of them have been to the beautiful city of Edinburgh during August and have been wonderful. The one time I broke the trend for a June or July trip to France with seven good friends, it ended so disastrously that by the end of it only five of those people were friends and worse still, I had horrific sunburn. I knew I was crazy to mess with the holiday gods, there was never any danger of that in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is like my second, perhaps even, third home.
In a slapdash effort of last minute organising over a pizza at Ben's house - well over my pizza that Ben and Thom also ate - we planned our trip to the greatest comedy and arts festival in the world. It was brilliant and the month or so that followed was filled with pure excitement. What could possibly go wrong? (In fact, nothing, and nothing did go wrong, I'm trying to hook you into this story now before it just turns into reviews of comedy shows...shouldn't have said that. Fuck. It's got a shocking ending, I promise.)
So we arrived in Scotland and took a bus to the city centre for £1.40....I repeat a £1.40 bus ride...a figure as low as that has not been paid on the privatised buses of Welwyn Garden City since 1924, when Barry caught a bus to visit his next door neighbours. We arrive in the city centre and take a little walk up the Royal Mile.
Day 1 - The Royal Mile. 12noon
The best way to describe the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh festival is: recycling waiting to happen. When you first step onto the royal mile, look up. Then look back down again, your hand is now full of flyers. As you proceed down the mile, past street theatre and makeshift stages, you will be handed more and more flyers. To count them is like counting grains of sand or stars in the night sky: pointless, hard work and probably really really amazing to Professor Brian Cox (Please note: but not to actor Brian Cox who couldn't give a fuck). The Royal Mile is a great street that branches off into roads that connect to all the bigger Edinburgh venues, but my god it's worth avoiding if you're in a hurry to get to one of those. Amongst the throng of people, as a flyer for a comedy show is handed to me by a man in his underpants (I make a note to file it somewhere safe and see that show as underpants are clearly funny, but alas a sharp wind and my wrist action sends it floating into a bin in a screwed up heap), I hear a sound. A sound that would haunt me for the remainder of my stay in Edinburgh. If it was an image I would still see it everytime I closed my eyes, but you cant close your ears so the metaphor is useless! I heard it a bit when my ears popped on the plane though. I speak of the horror of acapella. It's everywhere in Edinburgh. Someone, once decided that music would be better without music, they were wrong and everyone to have performed it since then has been wrong too. Just as people who juggle or pretend to be statues are wrong to call it street-theatre. I cant deny there is a lot of street involved, but it is hardly on a par with Hamlet or even Mama Mia. "My bikes only got one wheel," yeah, it was fucking clever the first time I saw that, but word of advice...it's been done.
Sean Hughes: Life Becomes Noise - Pleasance Forth - 5:30PM
Ah, Sean Hughes, proof of the old saying "Never let yourself be replaced by Bill Bailey. You will only be forgotten." The underrated (my opinion, but coincidentally factually correct) former Buzzcocks team captain and Coronation Street star whose dad has recently died.
More on that later. But first news of the queue. Don't worry, my obsession with Edinburgh does not yet stretch to reviewing the queues (for anyone interested, comfortably short, plenty of breathing space in front and behind and a pleasing amount of sunshine (4/5)). It was while queuing for this particular show that another show was ending around the corner in the Pleasance Grand. The Pleasance is my favourite Edinburgh venue. A collection of rooms that are part of the university the rest of the year. Some rooms clearly designed to be theatre space, others are bars or gyms or small rooms of no significance 11 months of the year, but all are venues for top entertainment during August. It's also got a beautiful courtyard where everyone mills around between shows at open air bars and eateries (by which I mean sheds selling burgers). If you're a celebrity spotter, this is the place to be. And coming out of his show at that exact moment while we waited for Sean's show was my comedy hero, Paul Merton. We'd warmed up earlier on the Royal Mile by meeting Simon Amstell, but my social awkwardness and his made conversation brief at best. A polite "I quite like you on the telly" was all I could muster. Mutual social awkwardness tends not to lead to "Oh wow! How cool! Me too!" type of conversation. But this was Merton. Comedy royalty. The man I aspired to be like. I would have to get a photo, tell him I was coming to his show and embarrassingly attempt a joke in his vicinity. I don't recall the joke or his response, but it was probably a polite "nice try" sort of laugh and we achieved photography, courtesy of Andre Vincent who pushed the button after which point I worked in a mention of The Early Edition just to prove I knew he had a show and wasn't a randomer we'd accosted to get a photo with a much more famous comedian.
Sean's show itself dealt with the death of his father and had something more of a one-man-play style than it did of the stand-up comedy style. Which is not to suggest for a moment that it wasn't funny. It was very funny. Darkly comic throughout but with some great puns too ("My dad's dying of the big C...He's drowning.") with a set and acting performances and puppets, but he drew the audience in with some audience participation too.
Rhys Darby: This Way To Spaceship - Pleasance Grand - 8PM
A surreal stand-up performance. Rhys Darby wakes up on a spaceship and recalls the events of his life to work out how he could have ended up there. A lot of it is observational comedy about dancing in clubs, Dyson hand-dryers and a childhood rebellion on a golf course, but Rhys has a seriously good surreal style and a great turn of phrase (helped by the New Zealand accent) that elevates it to being something brilliant. One of the best stand-up shows I saw at this years fringe. Clever surreal. Better, and slightly more grounded than the Mighty Boosh/Noel Feilding style of surrealness (surrealality?) where nothing makes sense at all. Plus the space ship is voiced by Jermaine which is pleasing.
This one may seem a bit short, but in fact it was one of the best stand-up shows of the 2012 fringe, it's just nothing much happened around it. We found a pub that sold Iduns cider (remember that name, hopefully that stuff is going to be massive) and a delicious steak sandwich, see I knew you wouldn't care.
The Horne Section - Pleasance Grand - 11:15PM
Earlier in the day, we were given a book of flyers for shows at the Bongo Club that included Simon Amstell's. We decided therefore to see Simon Amstell. Sadly he was sold out. Miserable, dejected, we could have left Edinburgh at that moment having failed, or gone to see some acapella. But instead we soldiered on towards the Pleasance - ok it wasn't that hard, it was right next door, but there was a hill! The Pleasance is home to many great acts and so in "the great ticket splurge of 2012" we spent close to £200 (not each) on tickets, and while Ben was entering his card details, I spotted a sign on the wall that announced Simon Amstell would be the special guest joining The Horne Section on stage that night at 11:15pm. Given the title of this section you can probably already guess that we spent some more money and went to see The Horne Section, who were becoming slightly legendary around the festival as a fun way to end the night and had lots of five star reviews.
Firstly, I should mention The Horne Section themselves. They're a band led by Alex Horne who, according to them, are the first to bring music and comedy together. A lot of their songs and routines remain stuck in my head to this day. Especially "This is not the show. This is just the intro" during which they attempted to assess who in the audience was in their demographic and we weren't. Their demographic is only men over thirty with beards. A lot of their routines were very simple musical gimmicks, but they were all very fun and clever at the same time. It was a very nuanced performance (apologies for sounding all wanky like a real critic) with loads of little touches, tiny gestures, quietly brilliant looks and lines that made them stand-out above the rest. As did the fact that they're brilliant musicians - the band clearly excel in their own right outside of this comedy, largely improvised silliness.
Then there were the guests. First up: Lloyd Langford. He's one of those Welsh. He hangs around a lot with Rhod Gilbert on various projects (not the suggest for one moment that all Welsh comedians live in a big house together, but they probably do.) and did a couple of stories from his stand-up show while the band improvised some musical accompanyment. It was clearly a lot of fun for both sides and he interacted a lot with the band, made suggestions, mocked and encouraged them. His stand-up was good too, though having seen a couple of stories from it here, I didn't go and see his actual show. It probably just wouldn't be the same acapella.
The next guests were a very weird pair. I have no recollection of what they were called, as they were slightly drowned out in my mind by the weight and excitement of the other guests, but essentially they were a musical duo that were dressed and made-up as though they had barely survived an apocalypse who played music on a table. That is they slapped a table repeatedly to make a rhythm and music. It may have been some sort of a special magic table, I don't know, but it was very good whatever voodoo they used to create that sound. They slapped each other as well for added amusement and did some Irish dancing.
Then it was the turn of Simon Amstell, originally our main reason for being here and still a very exciting one, but now The Horne Section had proven itself brilliant in it's own right. The only way this could get better is if Simon Amstell did a hilarious medly of I Can Be Your Hero Baby, The Circle Of Life and Kiss From A Rose so it's quite lucky that's what he did, as it was brilliant.
So that's all good then. All the advertised guests have been on and been good and now all that remains is for the Horne Section to do some material about the Olympics and we can all go home to bed - I'm not going to lie, I've been up since four in the morning and it's coming up to one in the morning tomorrow now, I've laughed a lot, I've eaten a lot (when your day is that long, standard mealtimes no longer make sense. When breakfast is at 5am, things get complicated), I've walked about a bit and I've met some famous people. I'm ready for my bed...well someone else's sofa where I will be kipping. "Did everyone enjoy the closing ceremony?" Alex Horne asks. We cheer. "And what was the best bit of the closing ceremony?" he asks. We shout some suggestions "That is was over," being a particular heckle I didn't think I would disagree with prior to the Olympics. "That Paul McCartney didn't sing," heckled another man, this time that I agreed with. "Madness," thought I.
"That's right, Madness," said Alex Horne, either through psychic power or pre-arranged script. In light of the picture that appeared on the projector at that moment probably the latter. The picture was of Madness with a circle drawn around one member of the famous ska band so that we'd spot that he was also part of a certain comedy band. A round of applause ensued. I was in the presence of one of The Madness. I was happy with that. But then, the curtains started twitching and whose this walking out?! It's only fucking Suggs!!! From Madness!!! I cannot stress how awake I was at this point! I joined in with "It Must Be Love" as though it were the national anthem and I were a member of the EDL, probably massively annoying the people around me who wanted to enjoy the music, but guess how much I cared.
All the men with beards got up on the stage and were led out of the room by the wonderful beard of Alex Horne and we virtually skipped - skanked more like - into the bar where we met Paul Merton. It was late now and the bar was empty, aside from the back of a man stood at the bar. A back I had a feeling I recognised. We instantly ran over to the back and told it how awesome we think Madness are, and that we'd just seen him in the Horne Section and it made our night and that we've downloaded Death Of A Rudeboy already and that we'd love to have a photo and that wow! And then we touched Suggs. Actually shook hands with the lead singer of my favourite band ever! No longer so sleepy, adrenaline or something (I'm no biologist, what is it you get when you're excited?), excitaline or something, forced us to go on a little walk and sing Madness songs, before getting a taxi to the wrong place and wandering the cold Scottish streets some more in search of our beds.
Day 1 - The Royal Mile. 12noon
The best way to describe the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh festival is: recycling waiting to happen. When you first step onto the royal mile, look up. Then look back down again, your hand is now full of flyers. As you proceed down the mile, past street theatre and makeshift stages, you will be handed more and more flyers. To count them is like counting grains of sand or stars in the night sky: pointless, hard work and probably really really amazing to Professor Brian Cox (Please note: but not to actor Brian Cox who couldn't give a fuck). The Royal Mile is a great street that branches off into roads that connect to all the bigger Edinburgh venues, but my god it's worth avoiding if you're in a hurry to get to one of those. Amongst the throng of people, as a flyer for a comedy show is handed to me by a man in his underpants (I make a note to file it somewhere safe and see that show as underpants are clearly funny, but alas a sharp wind and my wrist action sends it floating into a bin in a screwed up heap), I hear a sound. A sound that would haunt me for the remainder of my stay in Edinburgh. If it was an image I would still see it everytime I closed my eyes, but you cant close your ears so the metaphor is useless! I heard it a bit when my ears popped on the plane though. I speak of the horror of acapella. It's everywhere in Edinburgh. Someone, once decided that music would be better without music, they were wrong and everyone to have performed it since then has been wrong too. Just as people who juggle or pretend to be statues are wrong to call it street-theatre. I cant deny there is a lot of street involved, but it is hardly on a par with Hamlet or even Mama Mia. "My bikes only got one wheel," yeah, it was fucking clever the first time I saw that, but word of advice...it's been done.
Sean Hughes: Life Becomes Noise - Pleasance Forth - 5:30PM
Ah, Sean Hughes, proof of the old saying "Never let yourself be replaced by Bill Bailey. You will only be forgotten." The underrated (my opinion, but coincidentally factually correct) former Buzzcocks team captain and Coronation Street star whose dad has recently died.
More on that later. But first news of the queue. Don't worry, my obsession with Edinburgh does not yet stretch to reviewing the queues (for anyone interested, comfortably short, plenty of breathing space in front and behind and a pleasing amount of sunshine (4/5)). It was while queuing for this particular show that another show was ending around the corner in the Pleasance Grand. The Pleasance is my favourite Edinburgh venue. A collection of rooms that are part of the university the rest of the year. Some rooms clearly designed to be theatre space, others are bars or gyms or small rooms of no significance 11 months of the year, but all are venues for top entertainment during August. It's also got a beautiful courtyard where everyone mills around between shows at open air bars and eateries (by which I mean sheds selling burgers). If you're a celebrity spotter, this is the place to be. And coming out of his show at that exact moment while we waited for Sean's show was my comedy hero, Paul Merton. We'd warmed up earlier on the Royal Mile by meeting Simon Amstell, but my social awkwardness and his made conversation brief at best. A polite "I quite like you on the telly" was all I could muster. Mutual social awkwardness tends not to lead to "Oh wow! How cool! Me too!" type of conversation. But this was Merton. Comedy royalty. The man I aspired to be like. I would have to get a photo, tell him I was coming to his show and embarrassingly attempt a joke in his vicinity. I don't recall the joke or his response, but it was probably a polite "nice try" sort of laugh and we achieved photography, courtesy of Andre Vincent who pushed the button after which point I worked in a mention of The Early Edition just to prove I knew he had a show and wasn't a randomer we'd accosted to get a photo with a much more famous comedian.
Rhys Darby: This Way To Spaceship - Pleasance Grand - 8PM
A surreal stand-up performance. Rhys Darby wakes up on a spaceship and recalls the events of his life to work out how he could have ended up there. A lot of it is observational comedy about dancing in clubs, Dyson hand-dryers and a childhood rebellion on a golf course, but Rhys has a seriously good surreal style and a great turn of phrase (helped by the New Zealand accent) that elevates it to being something brilliant. One of the best stand-up shows I saw at this years fringe. Clever surreal. Better, and slightly more grounded than the Mighty Boosh/Noel Feilding style of surrealness (surrealality?) where nothing makes sense at all. Plus the space ship is voiced by Jermaine which is pleasing.
This one may seem a bit short, but in fact it was one of the best stand-up shows of the 2012 fringe, it's just nothing much happened around it. We found a pub that sold Iduns cider (remember that name, hopefully that stuff is going to be massive) and a delicious steak sandwich, see I knew you wouldn't care.
The Horne Section - Pleasance Grand - 11:15PM
Earlier in the day, we were given a book of flyers for shows at the Bongo Club that included Simon Amstell's. We decided therefore to see Simon Amstell. Sadly he was sold out. Miserable, dejected, we could have left Edinburgh at that moment having failed, or gone to see some acapella. But instead we soldiered on towards the Pleasance - ok it wasn't that hard, it was right next door, but there was a hill! The Pleasance is home to many great acts and so in "the great ticket splurge of 2012" we spent close to £200 (not each) on tickets, and while Ben was entering his card details, I spotted a sign on the wall that announced Simon Amstell would be the special guest joining The Horne Section on stage that night at 11:15pm. Given the title of this section you can probably already guess that we spent some more money and went to see The Horne Section, who were becoming slightly legendary around the festival as a fun way to end the night and had lots of five star reviews.
Firstly, I should mention The Horne Section themselves. They're a band led by Alex Horne who, according to them, are the first to bring music and comedy together. A lot of their songs and routines remain stuck in my head to this day. Especially "This is not the show. This is just the intro" during which they attempted to assess who in the audience was in their demographic and we weren't. Their demographic is only men over thirty with beards. A lot of their routines were very simple musical gimmicks, but they were all very fun and clever at the same time. It was a very nuanced performance (apologies for sounding all wanky like a real critic) with loads of little touches, tiny gestures, quietly brilliant looks and lines that made them stand-out above the rest. As did the fact that they're brilliant musicians - the band clearly excel in their own right outside of this comedy, largely improvised silliness.
Then there were the guests. First up: Lloyd Langford. He's one of those Welsh. He hangs around a lot with Rhod Gilbert on various projects (not the suggest for one moment that all Welsh comedians live in a big house together, but they probably do.) and did a couple of stories from his stand-up show while the band improvised some musical accompanyment. It was clearly a lot of fun for both sides and he interacted a lot with the band, made suggestions, mocked and encouraged them. His stand-up was good too, though having seen a couple of stories from it here, I didn't go and see his actual show. It probably just wouldn't be the same acapella.
The next guests were a very weird pair. I have no recollection of what they were called, as they were slightly drowned out in my mind by the weight and excitement of the other guests, but essentially they were a musical duo that were dressed and made-up as though they had barely survived an apocalypse who played music on a table. That is they slapped a table repeatedly to make a rhythm and music. It may have been some sort of a special magic table, I don't know, but it was very good whatever voodoo they used to create that sound. They slapped each other as well for added amusement and did some Irish dancing.
Then it was the turn of Simon Amstell, originally our main reason for being here and still a very exciting one, but now The Horne Section had proven itself brilliant in it's own right. The only way this could get better is if Simon Amstell did a hilarious medly of I Can Be Your Hero Baby, The Circle Of Life and Kiss From A Rose so it's quite lucky that's what he did, as it was brilliant.
So that's all good then. All the advertised guests have been on and been good and now all that remains is for the Horne Section to do some material about the Olympics and we can all go home to bed - I'm not going to lie, I've been up since four in the morning and it's coming up to one in the morning tomorrow now, I've laughed a lot, I've eaten a lot (when your day is that long, standard mealtimes no longer make sense. When breakfast is at 5am, things get complicated), I've walked about a bit and I've met some famous people. I'm ready for my bed...well someone else's sofa where I will be kipping. "Did everyone enjoy the closing ceremony?" Alex Horne asks. We cheer. "And what was the best bit of the closing ceremony?" he asks. We shout some suggestions "That is was over," being a particular heckle I didn't think I would disagree with prior to the Olympics. "That Paul McCartney didn't sing," heckled another man, this time that I agreed with. "Madness," thought I.
"That's right, Madness," said Alex Horne, either through psychic power or pre-arranged script. In light of the picture that appeared on the projector at that moment probably the latter. The picture was of Madness with a circle drawn around one member of the famous ska band so that we'd spot that he was also part of a certain comedy band. A round of applause ensued. I was in the presence of one of The Madness. I was happy with that. But then, the curtains started twitching and whose this walking out?! It's only fucking Suggs!!! From Madness!!! I cannot stress how awake I was at this point! I joined in with "It Must Be Love" as though it were the national anthem and I were a member of the EDL, probably massively annoying the people around me who wanted to enjoy the music, but guess how much I cared.
All the men with beards got up on the stage and were led out of the room by the wonderful beard of Alex Horne and we virtually skipped - skanked more like - into the bar where we met Paul Merton. It was late now and the bar was empty, aside from the back of a man stood at the bar. A back I had a feeling I recognised. We instantly ran over to the back and told it how awesome we think Madness are, and that we'd just seen him in the Horne Section and it made our night and that we've downloaded Death Of A Rudeboy already and that we'd love to have a photo and that wow! And then we touched Suggs. Actually shook hands with the lead singer of my favourite band ever! No longer so sleepy, adrenaline or something (I'm no biologist, what is it you get when you're excited?), excitaline or something, forced us to go on a little walk and sing Madness songs, before getting a taxi to the wrong place and wandering the cold Scottish streets some more in search of our beds.
Next time: We see a terrible show, more encounters with a comedy legend and some dancing.
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