Previously on this blog: Meeting people. Late night French comedy. The best and worst shows ever. "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" and a review of a queue right after I told you I wouldn't review a queue. What am I like?
Day 4 - Big Sean, Mikey and Me - The Turret - 1:30PM
Another early in the day one-man play, another disappointingly small audience. Aside from it's good reviews, a lot of the reason I went to see this was that the man himself was handing out the leaflets and was really friendly and chatty. Over the years, a few of the shows I've taken punts on have been shows promoted by the performer themselves, because they are so much better than, for example, the uninterested woman who was handing out a pile of leaflets and thought the best way to make us go and see these acts was to, atrociously, repeat some of their gags with zero% intonation and about 15% recall of the actual jokes. The passionate, funny, star of the show is always more likely to get me to go and that's what happened this time.
Big Sean, Mikey and Me is a play that opens by explaining that it isn't a play, but is a man simply telling his true story. The show's star, Ruaraidh Murray, tells the story of his misspent youth and growing up in the "Edinburgh the tourists don't see." After some of what he said, I felt pleased that I was leaving Edinburgh that very night if I'm honest. It's a story of an out-of-work actor trying to rebuild his life. It's very working class, Scottish and involves stories of his cocaine abuse (why wont someone be kind to that poor coke, everyone abuses it). Inevitably, I'm going to have to compare it to Trainspotting. It's quite like Trainspotting. Given that the description in the program features a review by Irving Welsh, I don't think Murray would mind the comparison. And it has its own uniqueness, enhanced by the fact that it's true and that here we see the result of the man who became an actor. His relationship with his friend Mikey and immaginary friend Sean Connery are both touching and funny. He remembered us after the show, and even recalled Ben's name, from the previous day too. A gent and a good actor. What more do you want?
My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver - Billiard Room - 3:10PM
I shook off my travelling companions - who went to see a sketch show featuring one of the impro-people from Monkey Toast - in order to wallow in some geekiness and see Toby Hadocke's second Doctor Who themed stand-up show. You don't have to be a Doctor Who fan to enjoy this show, if you're not the kind of person who will be annoyed if they don't get every little reference that is. It is surprisingly accessible and what Toby is really doing is telling the story of becoming step-father to a deaf child and bonding through Doctor Who while working through some issues he has with his own absent father (who he discussed in his first Doctor Who show). It's clever stand-up and about my favourite TV show ever. It makes me both want to embrace fully my love of Doctor Who and shout about it a lot more than I already do too much, and also realise my obsession is nothing compared to the Toby Hadocke's of this world.
Putting aside the Doctor Who fan part of my brain and activating the comedy fan side for a moment (there's not much else in my head. 45% Doctor Who. 45% Comedy. 10% Wank-bank.) it taught me the importance of not letting yourself deviate too far from your routine, as at one point Toby threw a large mug full of water over his face and then, embarrassed, explained he'd forgotten a joke earlier on in which he was meant to take a big swig of drink.
Tom Thum: Beating The Habit - E4 Udderbelly - 6:45PM
This is another one that we took a punt on because we were given a leaflet by someone who made it sound interesting. Tom Thum is a beatboxer. Now normally, I wouldn't be too fussed about seeing a beatboxer. Frankly, I'm a bit over it, but the woman giving out the leaflets sold it to us as something a bit special, the reviews were good, and fuck it! It's Edinburgh, take a risk. I'm not disappointed that I did. He was very good. The reason, I think, I don't like beatboxers (anymore, I used to) is that I've seen it be done a fair few times now and, for me, it's not a novelty or rare skill any more. But the thing with Tom Thum is he doesn't just have a talent, he has an act. Not only does he seem capable of making any noise known to man or not, he's written a show around it, with film inserts, cover versions, dub, a vague story linking it all together and plenty of jokes and charm. When old farts ask "What can you actually do with that?" Tom Thum is one of the beatboxers who can answer that question well. I hope more follow his model.
Andrew Lawrence Is Coming To Get You - Pleasance One - 8:50PM
We're into the last run of shows for our festival experience 2012, and in one of the bigger fringe venues at the Pleasance. There are benches instead of chairs delaying the start of the near sell-out show as people had to be told to shuffle along a bit to make room for everyone. Andrew Lawrence wins the award for probably the most depressing act of the fringe 2012. It's a very good show, but a show about how we should all be depressed and miserable and how life ultimately sucks. To the tune of If You're Happy And You Know It: "Life's a shithole and you know it. Kill yourself." He also talks quite a bit about depression and mental illness in comics, because that's the subject of a BBC3 documentary he's presenting soon. He was very disparaging about that as he was about everything. To be honest, he made jokes about the link between mental illness and performers but didn't really go into much depth. It would have been interesting to explore it deeper, I guess the question though is would it have been funnier and it would be hard to imagine it being funnier than Andrew's material. I guess we have to wait to for the documentary to add the depth, though as Andrew says "It's on BBC3 so it's not a real documentary, and will be vapid and empty and probably called something like 'chuckling spastics.'"
If you think he's being overly disparaging towards his own show, you should have heard the abuse he dished out to a couple of performers from the free fringe in his audience. A particular bit where he refused to let a performer evade the question of her venue capacity was awkward and hilarious. It turned out to be around 60. "Sixty? Look around at this." Good stuff. Last time I saw Andrew Lawrence he was on stage for about two and a half hours (possibly a figure boosted by a long heckle battle where he got into a hilarious fight with a naive drama teacher and someone else weighed in to get some funny abuse too) and he definitely wants to deliver value for money, so having started 10 minutes late, we left about 15 minutes late. And we had another show to get to. Luckily the route to that venue was mainly downhill.
Marcel Lucont: Gallic Symbol - Belly Button - 10:25PM
Fortunately this show was also late to start, but with another show to see right after this, we were definitely getting a work out on our last day in Edinburgh, and with no time for a meal between shows either - probably a good thing given the amounts we'd consumed earlier in the week.
I digress (again). Yes, it is the French character we'd seen the previous night, this time we were back to see his full show. In the 21 hours or so since this guy first made his mark on us, we'd learnt some more facts about him. His face appeared on another poster for the stand-up show of Alexis Dubus - if you assumed that that was another character you're in good company, so did we, but that's this guys real name. Still two shows at Edinburgh is pretty impressive, for someone we haven't heard of. Plus Marcel Lucont's Cabaret Fantastique which he did at weekends. We had other engagements forcing us to give that one a miss, but I hope to one day see it as it's blurb describes it as "containing magic and tits."
There were few jokes from his set the previous night in this show and we were treated to different stories, different poems and different songs, and a brilliant routine where he did some English jokes for the English audience - these were all based on French stereotypes of the English and were fantastique. He has won the Amused Moose Comedy Award at the fringe which gains him £5000 for the advancement of his comedy career and a DVD deal, so I hope soon you will all have heard of him, because it's no fun saying "ha, I saw him first," about a guy who hasn't been on TV, and Marcel or Alexis or whatever his name is, deserves fame, after just enough obscurity to make me still special that is.
Reginald D Hunter: Work In Progress and Niggas - Pleasance One - 11:50PM
The last show of the fringe for us was fortunately another late starter. And way back in the first instalment of this blog, I remember promising you a shocking ending, this is it: This show was not good.
Yes, Reginald D Hunter, was a let down. I've seen his stand-up a couple of times and was very much looking forward to his 2012 show, but naturally it had sold out, so we went to one of his extra shows later at night after his regular performance and it was weird. He'd had a fair bit to drink, this was evident from the moment he strolled on stage late with a plastic cup of "water" and before starting his show asked for another vodka for when he finished that one. That's right, he had two glasses of neat vodka on the stage from the start of the show! In setting up the show he talked about how he would use the word "niggas" a lot to mean idiots, and "faggotry" a lot to mean "hassle, stupidity, undue stress." As a thing about reclaiming those words it was unusual and uninteresting, but from a master like D Hunter it should be good and lead to good things. He started with some all right observational stuff about the recent John Terry racist stuff in the news. I get the feeling this would be sharper and more insightful without the voddy, but it was just sort of all right. Then he talked about people who ask him if Paul Merton, Ian Hislop or Stephen Fry are nice and how if your lowest expectations for someone is that they're nice, that's meaningless. Anyone can be nice and polite. There were a few awkward laughs in this routine. A lot of the room seemed to enjoy it, I really struggled to laugh as he sort of trailed off into man-in-a-pub "and-another-thing" ranting mode.
So far so weird. But then things started to get dark. He talked about women. Women he'd slept with, a woman who had his lovechild, a woman who tried to blackmail him, Margaret Thatcher... everything about this whole thing was uncomfortable and, although some people seemed to be enjoying it, very unfunny. I'm not sure why it was getting any laughs at all. It was horrible to watch this great witty man being so much closer to the drunken idiot who has something "important to tell you about life, and trust me I've been there." He seemed to have forgotten to make jokes, it almost seemed as though he'd forgotten he was saying this to a room full of paying punters. He was giving his opinions and telling rambling stories that only vaguely seemed to have a point (and didn't have a point comedically). Near the end of the show, he asked for another (3rd) glass of Vodka and described the man who came on to bring it to him as one of the few friends in life he could properly trust. If you read that and are thinking we were seeing a guy spoofing the stereotypical drunk, we certainly weren't. He was persuaded by a heckler to down that vodka, and then just started hitting on members of his audience. When a comedian says "I would like to smell your pussy," it's really weird, shocking to the point of getting a laugh, when he carries on speaking you kinda really wish this show would be over soon. Fortunately it was. As we left my main thought was "what have we just seen?"
I've now filed it in the category of "Only in Edinburgh." I've seen terrible acts die on stage, I've seen good acts die on stage, and I've seen comedians being very drunk before, but that felt like something we definitely shouldn't have seen. There were lots of unexpectedly brilliant things about this festival, and all the ones I've been to, but that was unexpectedly disastrous. I wonder if the guy throwing out free T-Shirts to the crowd at the end of the show thought of it as damage control, to make us leave happy. I don't imagine he does that after many gigs.
Weird end to the week, but what a week it had been! I am definitely going back next year and it has actually inspired me to write more and try and be funny, and one day I'd like to be in Edinburgh as a performer (it's a quicker, more efficient way of losing your money than buying tickets, but only just). It's a beautiful city of American tourists and awesome architecture, but I feel little inclination to go there between September and July. A lot of the acts I've mentioned are on tour, and I recommend most of them, so go and see them. Or go and take a punt on a comedy night with no names you recognise as I intend to.
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