Vineys 2015

It's awards season!

You can tell because all the film trailers you see on TV are about people talking with few explosions.

Because apparently the people given the job of choosing the Oscars don't really go to the movies the rest of the year round and are likely to forget anything that came out pre-December.

With that in mind it's time for the highly anticipated* Dan Vine Awards Blog.

*The one person I told about this said "oh, are you still doing that?"

I want to just mention a notable exemption from my awards. I will not be mentioning the film Boyhood despite it being up for many awards. Famously Richard Linklater filmed the movie over the course of 12 years. As someone who also puts things off till the last minute at work, I don't think that should be rewarded.

Film of the Year

Nominees - The Imitation Game Benedict Cumberbatch plays war hero Alan Turing who built a machine that saved hundreds of lives, despite everyone saying "it can't be done Benedict. You're being weird Benedict." But then politics, secrets and his homosexuality make things a bit morally, ethically and emotionally complicated. It's a war film with no shooting or Americans turning up to claim the credit and worth seeing

Lucy Scarlett Johnason (here after referred to as Scarlett Johnson because of autocorrect) stars as a woman who doesn't think too much, she only uses about 10% of her brain. Then a bag of Ritalin or something similar explodes in her guts and the newly focussed Scarlet Johanson begins to use 100% of her brain. At first this is small things like learning how to use Skype, but before long she can control the laws of physics. In a final showdown that shows off the amazing direction and stunning visuals of the film, Lucy sees all of the past and future and evolves into the next stage of human evolution by becoming a USB memory stick. 

The Grand Budapest Hotel Typical Wes Anderson, quirky design and direction. Ralph Finnes (Harry Potter's old enemy and James Bond's new boss, so don't let them tell you criminals can't turn their life around with a second chance) stars as Monsieur Gustav H. a hotel concierge accused of a murder he did not commit. It's his first major comedy role since the brilliant In Bruges where he played a gangster who turns up in the last half an hour of the film and steals the thing from the main leads. This film is often almost as dark as that but has lightness and subtlety aplenty too. It was only narrowly beaten to the top spot, but it's probably happy enough with it's 11 BAFTA nominations so it doesn't care.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies I'll be honest, I did not like The Lord of the Rings. I know that anybody still reading is just doing so in the hope I apologise for that statement. But the cast for the Hobbit was too good to miss, and An Unexpected Journey got me hooked, The Desolation of Smaug sealed the deal. Both had brilliant CGI and loads of brilliant make up and practical effects, and some great character work. One of Peter Jackson's skills is giving every character a back story and rounded personality. This film is a great conclusion to the trilogy and the whole middle earth series (does anyone believe there wont be more though?), but kept off the top spot by not being as good as films 1 and 2. It fell into a few problems I had with Lord of the Rings (still not sorry). Chiefly what I didn't like was that it was a battle of 5 armies. In hindsight I should have seen that coming, but I have to say, I kinda switch off half an hour into any film with big CGI armies having a fight. Its 300 dwarves vs 300 elves vs 300 eagles vs 300 orcs vs 300 men. It's a visually brilliant fight, but I really struggle to feel anything for elf #241 when he's killed by orc #124. I just fail to give a shit at that level. And the one Hobbit caught in the middle of it, presumably the most interesting character, is tragically underused. Plus Evangaline Lily says at one point "If this is love, I do not wish it," which wins the award for worst movie line of the year, previous winners include the slightly better "Show me more of this Earth thing you call kissing." All that said, the film is saved by a stella cast and a small dog that stares into the camera.

And the Winner is...Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel do science fiction comedy. It's winning status was pretty much assured before we even went to see it, but everyone thought it might be a flop. The comics are not as well known as The Avenger's heroes, and also are not frankly heroes. It's a great new take on some interesting characters. The take on Peter Quill/Starlord is brilliant. In the comics he is an actual hero and the fact his name is Starlord is not a joke, which is just stupid. He honestly calls himself Starlord any nobody ever laughs at that. Starlord! In fact he's more sanctimonious than Captain America. I imagine that is where the Guardians trilogy is heading and some things from this film set it up to go that way, but in the very first comic book he goes out and becomes a hero after learning that revenge is bad in a story more heavy handed in it's moral than all 79 original series Star Trek episodes. This film by contrast is fun and genuinely laugh out loud throughout. Kudos to the writer who decided to change the tone and the casting director who cast Andy from Parks and Rec.  It captures all the fun and imagination of Star Wars with none of the consequences, and a little bit of Red Dwarf thrown in there too.

Best Edinburgh Show

Nominees - Post Show 2014 was a good year for improvised shows at Edinburgh. This one has a brilliant concept. While you're queuing for the show, a member of theatre staff comes out and tells you that you're late, and they'll usher you into the auditorium but you have to be quiet as the play is in progress. You walk in during the last scene of a four hour play, and as soon as the audience sit down the play ends and they open it up to the audience for questions. Make sure you are up for joining in if you ever go to see this play. They story of the play is made up based on the questions you ask.

What Does The Title Matter Anyway? Due to legal issues this show is nothing like Whose Line Is It Anyway? It's hosted by Clive Anderson (Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and features Greg Proops (Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and other regulars from the hit show Whose Line Is It Anyway? alongside new performers from this year's fringe. They play games from Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Alex Edelman: Millennial Alex won Best Newcomer at some awards that actually matter and he deserves it. A very young and talented stand-up, he does what could be considered the usual story telling and observations, but he's a young Millennial American (or possibly Canadian, or possibly just trendy, I'm going on the accent) which gives him a unique and new voice and a very clever and interesting voice too. Worth looking out for this guy. He's partly nominated so that I can prove I was there at the start.

The Horne Section: Milk The Tenderness Oh, to think two years previously, the only reason I bought tickets to 'The Horne Section' was that Simon Amstell was a guest. That night is honestly the most excited I've been in a theatre. That's largely because of an unannounced guest appearance from Suggs, but also because, The Horne Section are just so damn good. I often bang on about loving satire and stand up about big issues in small theatres, but fun, silly songs honestly bring me so much joy. Especially as the song Manly Man (not about the pub crawl of the same name) was dedicated to me, and I found myself on stage with Alex Horne.

Austentatious An Improvised Jane Austen novel. I'm not a fan of all that Jane Austen girly bookish nonsense, but that doesn't matter this is hilarious. Using only a title pulled at random from a bag of audience suggestions, a team of improvisers create a new Jane Austen story. I'm sure there are jokes that will be better if you do know your Austen, but as I already couldn't breathe from laughing too hard, it would be dangerous for my health to read any Jane Austen. I saw this show twice and saw various members of the cast in their own separate shows and at a late night Sketch Transfer Deadline Day thing, in which acts swap members with other acts, where I also saw...

The Beta Males A sketch group with loads of brilliant and surreal sketches. Songs, parody, general silliness, with running gags and one or two running stories throughout their sketches. I mean, it's genuinely hard to tell if it's one or two stories, it's complicated but really funny.

And The Winner Is... Alex Horne: Monsieur Butterfly Alex Horne tells an amusing story about a time he saw a squirrel in his kitchen and attempted to catch it. As he's telling the story he uses props on stage to build the scene. This leads to deeper thoughts to do with his life and life in general. And slowly what he's building takes shape. He talks about how everything is connected and, as the title suggests, the Butterfly Effect comes up. That suggests one thing leads to another and another and another in a long chain that led to an attempt to catch a squirrel, and that's when you finally realise he's building a huge game of Mousetrap! Quality stand up and amateur craftsmanship, what more could I want? As he says "Even if you weren't enjoying this show, I don't think you'd leave before seeing the end." I was lucky enough to see this twice, the first time as a work-in-progress show in London when the Mousetrap didn't work. That was still hilarious and great to see but never has an audience more wanted to see something succeed spectacularly and, to be fair, in Edinburgh he did.

Best Sitcom

Nominees - Community (NBC) There are two surprising things about Community Series 5, one is that it happened at all, the other is that it was good. After an awful fourth season they bought back the writer they'd fired and, despite losing cast members before and during this series, came back to form. Community starts with stories and builds jokes around them which makes for compelling and funny viewing and it makes it genuinely unpredictable, and not in a How I Met Your Mother kind of way where it forgets it's supposed to be making jokes and just starts killing people to make the trending topics.

The Detectorists (BBC4) Makenzie Crooke (The Office) and Toby Jones (everything British) play a couple of metal detector enthusiasts struggling with life, love and the Antiquisearchers! Will they uncover treasure? Will they find a body? Will they know any answers on University Challenge? Will they even be friends or detectorists by the end of it? A genuinely warm and uplifting comedy (and I usually only use that to describe rubbish shows, but this is great).

The Trip To Italy (BBC2) Staring Steve Coogan as Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as Rob Brydon and Roni Ancona as a random secretary. Steve and Rob are travelling abroad to Italy on a road trip. They have an obsession with Byron and Alanis Morriessette and each other. Like the first series this delves into the insecurities of the stars, but perhaps has more loud jokey moments than the first series and less quiet ones. Nonetheless it's brilliant and you can't knock a show for having more funny bits.

And the Winner is...Inside Number 9 (BBC2) From the creators of The League of Gentlemen (well the ones who weren't lucky enough to be Mark Gatiss) and Psychoville comes a new comedy anthology of stories. Each episode has a new set of characters in a new situation, all linked by the fact they take place in house number 9 or room number 9. To be honest that's only so they have a title for the show. So six episodes. One inside a wardrobe during a game of sardines, how has no comedy done that before? It's a great idea. Trap a load of characters together and let some secrets come out. Another episode is a silent comedy, with genuine reasons why the characters can't speak. The gag when the door-to-door salesman turns up and how they maintain the silence is the cleverest but the gag with the dog is silly and therefore my favourite bit. Another episode follows a man who befriends a tramp and helps him get back on his feet while his own life falls apart. A legal battle over a balloon containing the last breath of a popstar. A bloody revenge tragedy that takes place in a dressing room back stage at Macbeth (and does Macbeth's story in 30 minutes) and a babysitter in a freezing haunted house, who should not disturb Andres under any circumstances in a tense horror spoof. Watch this, you're bound to like one of them. Series 2 is coming soon.

Best Live Show (Non-Edinburgh)

Nominees - Madness: The Madhead Tour (O2, 20th Dec) Another solid night of skanking. I'm sure I lose weight at our annual Madness gig. The only downside this year was that they were supported by Scouting For Girls, who write two lines per song and then repeat them for five minutes. Yes, yes, I understand that she's lovely. Fortunately their set was elevated by missing it and having a lovely meal instead, and catching up with my Madness fan friends who I don't see too often.

The Best Of The Comedy Store (The Underbelly on the Southbank, 11th May) This is another gig made brilliant by a lovely meal before hand. I highly recommend Strada on the Southbank. Their outside seating area is outside the restaurant but INSIDE the Southbank centre, it's confusing but absolutely lovely and we almost missed the show because me and Leigh were getting to know each other. That said, I am glad we didn't miss the show. For Edinburgh goers it's a bit surreal, wandering around an Edinburgh venue on London's Southbank. The acts on that night were comedy store favourite John Mahoney, psychotic grumpy man Andrew Lawrence and Asian-Marcus-Brigstocke Romesh Ranganathan.

The Final Revelation of Sherlock Holmes (The Pleasance Islington, 21st Feb) Another theatre trip with great food. I was worried by an empty Indian restaurant on a Friday night with Christmas decorations still up in February, but I was hungry and it was brilliant. The play itself: Sherlock Holmes is dying and it's not Moriarty who is to blame, as his life fades he has one last mystery to solve. Why?

Richard II  (Barbican, 7th January) It's David Tennant vs Barry from Four Lions in a Shakespeare masterpiece. I'm moving on because I don't want to bang on too much, not because I don't understand it. What?! I did!

Rich Hall's Hoedown (Hertford Theatre, 26th May) Insightful stand-up and songs and an autographed CD for me at the end.

Alex Horne: Monsieur Butterfly Work-In-Progress (The Invisible Dot. 5th May) I've covered this elsewhere when it went right, but it was great to see it go wrong too

Stewart Lee: A Room With A Stew (Soho Theatre, 20th June) A very early stages, work-in-progress show. It was about 85% old material with 15% stuff he was trying out thrown in, but repeated Stewart Lee material is still welcome and it was interesting to see the master at work.

Paul Merton's Impro Chums (Hawthorne Theatre, 13th October) Paul Merton in my local theatre. I believe in supporting the arts locally, which I mostly do by not going to see it but occasionally meaning to, so as the local theatre in Welwyn Garden City were playing host to legend Paul Merton and his never disappointing chums, I had to go.

Jersey Boys (Picardilly Theatre, 7th August) Here's a pub quiz tip, if you're in a pub quiz and you know the name of a song but not who it's by; it's probably by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. It's a juke box musical, telling the interesting back story of a band I didn't realise I was interested in until I saw it. Brilliant performances from all the leads. Few dodgy accents from the supporting cast, but the singing voices...wow.

And the Winner is...Ghost Stories (Arts Theatre, 27th March) Written by Andy Nyman who wrote Derren Brown's material for years and Jeremy Dyson the other other one from League of Gentlemen. This is a horror comedy that asks you not to reveal it's secrets, so this blog is a waste of time. All I can say is the black painted theatre with police tape hang all round it is wonderfully done and creepy, and makes you feel part of it, so much so that you will shit yourself in terror and wet yourself with laughter. Eat and drink after is what I'm saying.

Best Rubbish TV Program: I Wanna Marry Harry (ITV2) This is a guilty pleasure. Dumb American women are flown to Downton Abbey where a comedy butler introduces them to some prick pretending to be Prince Harry. He must date them and choose his favourite who he then spends the rest of his life with assuming she's ok with being lied to and manipulated for the last 10 weeks. It's shocking but addictive. ITV2 also had a show called Release the Hounds where contestants had to run away from man-eating dogs, which meant when Prince Harry sends people home the phrase "Next: Release the Hounds" appears.

Disappointment of the Year: Neville's Island Adrian Edmondson. Robert Webb. Miles Jupp. Neil Morrisey. How could this play possibly go wrong? By being the most contrived, overly explained, predictable play ever written is how. The cast are so brilliant and the show so bad it was crushing.

Best Actor

Nominees Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) For making a film with all the feels of war and none of the blood. And then later for destroying a whole village by breathing fire on it. Well to be fair, Stephen Fry lived there and he gave Benedict second place in an acting competition (He also didn't win the BAFTA so maybe Fry has a personal vendetta?)

Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) For making me more excited about Jurrassic Park than I am about Star Wars

Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who) For making Clara less annoying while making it even more about her

Olivia Coleman (Broadchurch) For just about everything, but especially for the scene last week (series 2 episode 6) where she tells her son off. Proper scary


And The Winner Is...Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who) Well it had to be! Because it's me. For making the Doctor scary and interesting, and because everytime they try and make him unlikeable I like it more.

Best Comedian

Nominees Paul Merton He's had a busy life and his autobiography could easily be a trilogy but it's a great rush through his life. His improvisation is still as sharp as ever

Lee Simpson Someone acknowledge that this guy is brilliant. One of the impro chums, but can completely upstage Paul Merton sometimes.

Sean Lock 8 Out of 10 Cats wouldn't be the same without his dead-pan wit. I also watched 15 Stories High again for the first time in years, and never appreciated quite how amazing it is first time around.

Cariad Lloyd One of the members of Austentacious, but she popped up in things we saw all over the fringe including What Does The Title Matter Anyway? She's made a BBC iPlayer pilot so she's one to watch out for. Brilliant improviser.

Tom Stade I like him from Live At The Apollo, but my girlfriend loves him so I went to see him live for the first time this year (My guide to romance: "Here's a present, it's tickets to something I really wanna see"), and he is really funny and regrettably handsome. His Boots Number 7 routine made me laugh so much.

Stewart Lee From Comedy Vehicle to Alternative Comedy Experience to Work-In-Progress shows to being a widely circulated anti-UKIP meme to his regular columns in the broadsheets to What Would Judas Do? (which is old but I only listened to this year) he is good isn't he?

Stephen Fry He bought comic relief to scenes of devastation in The Hobbit, had a ruddy good argument with God on Irish telly, hosted QI of course and wrote another genuinely interesting autobiography.

And the winner is...Alex Horne Did I mention Mousetrap? He has officially become my favourite comedian of 2014...ever! He is the best ever.

Best Comedy Panel Show

Nominees~Have I Got News For You (BBC1) Because it's always a classic. 2014 didn't see any stand out guest hosts like previous years. There was no Brian Blessed or Boris Johnson. On the other hand there was no Ann Widdicombe either. The show had a solid year.

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (BBC Radio 4) It had a mixed year. There was bad press over their jokes about the shows made-up scorer "the lovely Samantha" and her various activities that all sound like sexual innuendos "It's always good to feel her electrician's tester calls regularly." Following the Dapper Laughs controversy these innuendos got a lot of media attention as debate raged about whether or not they were offensive to all fictional women. On the positive side, they had a lot of guests on for the first time who were very good, even if you had to worry when only one of the regular cast of veteran comedians in their 70s or 80s turns up for the December shows in the harsh winter.

The News Quiz (BBC Radio 4) Like Have I Got News For You, but on the wireless, and with Sandi Toksvig and Jeremy Hardy. I went to a recording of this show in 2014 and it had another strong year.

QI Isn't this show just consistently good? Yes.

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (Dave) This show is simply Alan Davies and 4 guests sitting around a desk having a chat. The format works well and Alan Davies has a fact about each of his guests to move things along when the conversation dries up. Plus it's Dave so if the conversation gets boring they can just cut to a 10 minute ad break like they do.

And the Winner is...8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown (Channel 4) It seemed like an entertaining one off to celebrate Channel 4, but surprisingly is into it's ninth series now, while the regular 8 Out of 10 Cats is, actually I don't know, or don't care. Cat's do Countdown has the prime time slot on Friday night, while the regular show is on late Monday nights, I think. I think it's a bit like the 'Just A Minute' effect ie. the game is simple but capable of loads of variations because of the guests. It's great that Joe Wilkinson has platform for his comedy which doesn't require the viewer to sit through 'Him and Her' too.

Best Entertainment Show

Nominees Charlie Brookers Weekly Wipe/2014 Wipe (BBC2) Nice to have a bit of satire on the box, his review of the week/year is always enlightened and interesting and Reasons To Be Fearful has been stuck in my head since I first saw it, well done Blockheads.

The Last Leg/The Last Leg Of The Year (Channel 4) Adam Hills only needs to tell someone to stop being a dick to become king of the internet. He's very funny and the concept is a relaxed review of the week.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central) American satire! It's so much more glamorous over there. This show is on every day and so I've sort of taken it for granted when listing my favourite shows, but since it's title will need adjusting soon, just time to acknowledge that this is on every day and consistently funny.

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC2) The UKIPS were a popular target this series, but this again has the unique live-club feel we have come to expect from Stewart Lee. His downbeat, angry observations are brilliant.



The Alternative Comedy Experience (Comedy Central) The comedians a bit too odd to be on BBC1 stand up. The behind-the-scenes chat is cool too. Only sad part is this show could be so much longer. It feels like we never see a complete set and what we do see it wonderful.

Monty Python: One Down, Five to Go (GOLD) Wasn't terribly impressed by most of this year's sketch comedy, but these old timers proved why they're good enough to sell out the O2. Whether they did it for the money, the love of it, or spite or to be honest, reading all their interviews, whether they even liked it, I don't care, it was funny. And when they corpsed in the sweetshop sketch, they seemed to be enjoying it.

John Finnemore's Souvenir Program (BBC Radio 4) I'm sorry for not mentioning Cabin Pressure in the Best Sitcom category. It's good but I had other priorities. This sketch show though is like Mitchell & Webb's best material and the "since you asked for a tale..." sketches that end each episode are worth the wait.

And the Winner Is...Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO) John Oliver. Why did we let him go? After regular appearances being wasted on Mock The Week, he gained no real fame in the UK, but got offered a job as a writer/correspondent on The Daily Show. In 2013 he spent two months filling in for Jon Stewart as host and now he's got his own show. And it's brilliant. Essentially the same format but on HBO so he can say fuck without being bleeped. It actually surpassed The Daily Show though. It's weekly nature means they can delve deeper into the stories that matter and it takes on big targets. Dictators, FIFA, Fox News and everyone evil, will fear this show.

Fringe Benefits - Day 4

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.

Fringe Benefits - Day 3

Previously on my Edinburgh Blog: We met Paul Merton! Then we Met Suggs! We briefly met a man who is pictured below (or maybe not. No he is, I just wanted to build some suspense). I got picked on for not taking the fact actress, Sue Johnstone had to take a month off work seriously enough. I had a lot of Buckybombs and danced till it, quite seriously, hurt.

Day 3 - My Elevator Days - Pleasance Upstairs - 12:30PM

Before 1PM is considered early at the Edinburgh Fringe Festvial. It's like a ghost town. The mornings are the times when the locals come out and do their shopping safe from flyers. The pleasance was deserted apart from the people who worked there and the twelve people who had come to see this play. It was a one man play and for a while, me and Ben sat outside worrying that the audience might be double the size of the cast. It was not the size of crowd this man deserved. Partly because of the time of day and also competing with all the comedy names that surrounded him at the pleasance. But it was a very good play and he was a very good actor. The play is a monologue about a man who became friends with an elevator (sounds weird, but it makes sense in the show. Basically he would talk to the elevator and be comforted by the sound of it, but it has much more to do with this guy who spent his entire - pretty lonely - life on the sixth floor of a tower block). It's pretty clever, it has a lot of witty lines, often revolving around the fourth-wall-breaking that he establishes in the opening line that he is talking to us, the audience. He asks us questions from time to time, none of which we're meant to answer. I wonder if he really is talking to us or just talking to himself coz he's a bit lonely and mad. I also wonder if that really matters. Or if it's worth telling you an opinion of it, since you haven't seen the play probably...I think I'm turning into him a bit now. Look out for a production of it, you'll like it. Plus at the end he brings on a cute dog as part of the punchline to a very funny, yet character defining, story.

The Early Edition - E4 Udderbelly - 2PM

Today was going to be busy day. We had a lot of shows to pack in and about 20minutes to hot-foot it from the Pleasance to the big, upside-down, purple cow in Bistro Square. The Early Edition is a live spin-off from the TV series The Late Edition. No, didn't expect you to have heard of it, it was dropped from BBC4's schedules because it had no viewers, because they never bothered to tell anyone it was on. It was hosted by one of my favourite comedians and even I didn't discover it until halfway through the last series. It was basically The Daily Show (don't tell me you don't watch that one either. 10:30 Comedy Central Extra. Er...Daily), but British.

The Early Edition is another Edinburgh show I've been back to see several times. It's hosted by Marcus Brigstocke, who charmingly signed my ticket when I saw the show a few years ago. And I still have, kept safe, the ticket signed by Rcus Stocke, and if the steward who ripped the stub off on the way in still has it, please get in touch. Originally this show was really the only comedy show you could/should go and see in the morning, but as I say, the streets aren't exactly packed in the am. The format is simple. Rcus Stoke and Andre Vincent and guests, read the daily newspapers "and the Mail as well" and tell us what's in them. Humour ensues. To be honest, the humour was kind of subdued that afternoon. I think partly because it was still relatively early for the fringe hardcore and neither of the guests were that famous. Carrie Quinlin (who writes on The Now Show) was one of them and although a popular guest on that show, I'm not a big fan of her. Kevin Day (who writes for Buzzcocks, Stand Up For The Week and Strictly) was the other guest. He was pretty funny, but not a star name, and evidently someone who is better at writing jokes than he is at performing them. All of this meant that the big upside-down cow we were in was half empty. Not a great atmosphere, but still a very funny show, mostly because of Prince Harry's involvement in the weeks news.
It ended on a bit of a dull note with Rcus opening it up to audience questions and someone asking where they got the bottled water they were drinking from and how much they paid for it. It's hard to tell if he was offering to do business with them ("I could have got that much cheaper for you") or thought that it would lead to genuine showstopping satire. It didn't really.

Juana In A Million - 10 Dome - 4:15PM

A bit of a gap between shows let me, finally, get some breakfast. The most sugary banoffee waffle I have ever had. If I, many years in the future, suffer from diabetes, I'm pretty sure doctors will trace it back to that waffle shed in Edinburgh. It was nice though. Next up was Juana In A Million at the Pleasance Dome which as far as I can make out is the University Of Edinburgh's SU the rest of the year. The 10 Dome is a claustrophobic room upstairs in the venue. It consisted of about 10 rows of seating (average, or perhaps above average for fringe venues) and a stage that was the size of a cupboard, and I'm not talking walk-in here, I'm talking the little ones you get in the side of some desks. It was another one person play, although a guy in the corner provided additional voices and music. I always like live music in a play. It's adds quite a bit of atmosphere and specialness (you can use a better word if you like) to a live performance.

Juana In A Million is based on the true stories of immigrants into the UK and follows the story of Juana, a Mexican immigrant who moves to the UK for a better life with, it's no spoiler to say, mixed results: mostly it's not good for her though. We were undecided about whether we wanted to go to this show. It was a must see according to The Stage on the one hand, on the other hand, it has that title. It turned out to be very good. These kind of plays can be rather uncomfortable to watch, I think that's the point, and this one certainly was at some points, Vicky Araico Casas is a really terrific actress which doesn't make it any more easy going. She flips from one character to another very smoothly and uses little ticks and grand movements to signal who she is. But there's also a lot of darkly funny bits in this, that prevent it from slipping too far into sob story territory. There are stories about an incredibly smelly woman who shares a bed with Juana in the home they're forced to live in, and Casas plays the chef in the restaurant where she works, who is constantly making sexual remarks and asking her to suck his dick, with a bit of dark humour, that gets less funny the more it's repeated - totally intentionally. All of this makes the really proper dark plot twists, feel much more horrible. There's a fair amount of dance drama and physical theatre in this, as a rule those are things I don't like, and it's not much different here. I think having it rammed down my throat too much doing A Level drama might be the cause, or it might be that I just prefer natural and real things. That let this down in my eyes - though it's obviously a matter of personal taste - and meant that this morning's much more natural performance of a man who was best friends with a lift remains my favourite, because it's er...more realistic, oddly.

Greg Proops - Elegance - 6:15PM

While buying tickets to this show we bumped into Kristen Schaal from Flight Of The Conchords and took our celebrity stalking trip to new levels by stalking a celebrity famous for playing a celebrity stalker. As a result of this meta-stalk, I can confirm that that is her real voice and that she is very charming and seemed genuinely impressed that we liked Madness because she thought we were too young for them. Oh yeah, we were telling everyone that we'd met Suggs, even other famous people we met. We didn't exactly phrase it "Yeah, you're good but..."

Greg Proops Watch: Sighting #2. This has to be the best looking of all the venues we visited. It was a giant big top with lots of elegant Victorian-circus feeling decor. But the downside is that it was a tent. A tent next to another tent where Glastonbury from the 70s seemed to be going on. This visibly annoyed and distracted Greg Proops throughout as the noise from their show sometimes drowned out his. It impacted on the reaction some of his best jokes should have got, because he's a really good comedian with a really good comic style, but was clearly being put off his stride a lot. It didn't make the show not funny, nothing could make Proops not funny, but it didn't exactly do him any favours. Still the crowd enjoyed it. The stage also had three sides but everyone was sat on one side, which made it less initimate than many Edinburgh shows, especially as Proops is one to wander about the stage while he speaks and that meant there were times when he was obscured by a pillar holding up the tent roof. To summarise, a very good comedian - someone who I knew from improv but had never seen doing stand-up before and was very impressed and amused by what I saw - but let down by a rather too shitty venue.

Andrew Maxwell: That's The Spirit - George Square Theatre - 9:05PM

This show was in a much better venue, and for once it was a venue that's probably a venue all year around rather than someone's bedroom, a gym or a storage cupboard. Our various meetings with celebrities led to an over-inflated ego and sense of our own fame and importance, and this, together with the poor signposting in the venue led to us attempting to accidentally walk in via the backstage door. The man we were following had to direct us the right way, "Thank you Mark Watson," we said (for it was he) and made some jokes at him, as if to prove we could have used the comedian's entrance if we'd wanted to, he laughed and Ben got the last laugh, which we agree is nice, because the comedian wasn't desperate to get the funny line in.

The show itself consisted of a lot of stories about conspiracy theories - Andrew had recently filmed a BBC documentary on the subject - and crazy redneck Americans. It was interesting and funny. A guy from the audience shouted out to confirm he was an SNP supporter but then fell silent and struggled to describe any of their policies under the polite questioning of Andrew Maxwell, it sort of played to my stereotypes of anyone supporting a party that ends in NP. To be honest, I don't remember much of this show, when you've seen a lot of Edinburgh shows you start to lose track of them and the tiredness from the night before was kicking in at this stage in the evening. You also start to notice it feel weird to laugh. A few days after I arrived back in WGC, I developed a sore throat which I put down to comedians being too hilarious. The beginning of that sore throat was felt during this gig, and that made me a bit self-concious about my stupid loud laugh and feel guilty about the pain I must put you in when you are in my presence for a long time. (HA! The last bit is ironic self-ego-inflating shite, don't worry about it).

Monkey Toast: The Improvised Chat Show - 10 Dome - 11:05PM

Determined not to let my declining health or tiredness stop me laughing, we decided to return to our claustrophobic room in the SU for some late night comedy. I wasn't sure what to expect of this show, but it's format was different and quite good. The host, David Shore, interviewed a couple of guests who were other comics performing at the fringe and then a team of six improvisers and a pianist would improvise scenes based around the guest's life stories. The start of this show didn't fill me with confidence. Everyone jumped, skipped and ran onto the stage waving. I hate that kind of thing. Boundless enthusiasm is not a particularly British style and it feels a little bit too much like they're trying to force us to be happy and shouting "We're fun!" aggressively in your face. But the show is Canadian in origin and so is probably very American influenced and that's the kind of thing they like isn't it? All too often American comedy acts zany because they mistake zany for actually humourous.

The first guest was Naz Osmanoglu. I'd seen him before as part of the sketch group Wittank and he was a gift to the improvisers, on account of being a half-Turkish prince who is 19th in line to the Turkish throne living his life in exile. This was probably not what the improvisers normally had to work from, but they came up with some brilliant stuff for him. We were sat in the front row, left hand corner, right in front of the desk where David and Naz (please, call him Mr Osmanoglu) were sat doing the interview so during the improvised scenes I was always distracted by watching how Osmanoglu (the G is silent) was reacting to them.

About half way through the show Naz left to a round of applause and was replaced by the next guest. Greg Proops Watch: Sighting #4. But "hark, what is this treachery?!" I hear you cry, "you were only on two sightings of Proops. What happened?" Let me take you far, far back in the sands of time to half an hour previously. While queuing for the show we saw Proops in the wild. The not-usually-a-venue nature of many of these places forces the comedian to walk past the queue to get backstage. Proops was in a hurry, but polite and friendly and shook our hands. I had planned not to wash them again from that moment on, but that would require me to never use the toilet again and I couldn't go back through the airport struggling to walk because my anus was full.

Proops was, as ever, an informed and opinionated guest but the best story, that stood out for us, was his recollections of a terrible venue he'd performed in earlier than night and a tantrum, not to mention a chair, he'd thrown in rage when he'd come off stage. It was great to get hear some follow up to Proops sighting #2 and the improvisation that the improsarios (I was getting bored of saying improvisers) did recreating his tantrum made him cry with laughter. Fun was had by all, especially Mr Proops, who happened to plug his podcast, that he would be recording in the Soho theatre shortly after we returned home. As a footnote to this I want to point out Proops Sighting #5, which at this point is the most recent, where he walked around the audience and introduced himself to everyone before performing his podcast and, once again, shook my hand and we told him it was the fourth time we'd seen him and reminded him of his tantrum. He gave us a shout out. Listen to the episode in question, called Gates, here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-smartest-man-in-the-world/id401055309?mt=2

After Hours Comedy - Ace Dome - 00:40AM

Another room in the SU, this time with a bar in it: lovely. A late night comedy show promising four of the best acts from the fringe, all doing around 25 minutes of material. I say late night, but obviously it's more early morning. The ticket respected that fact by listing the date of the show as ""Thu 23 August 2012."" I approve of it's use of inverted commas as a way of saying "because it's simpler and we all know what it means we're going to act like it's still Thursday because you haven't been to bed yet" but pleasing the pedants as well. If only we could all pay more attention to the needs of pedents and not needlessly do childish things to whind them up.

Prior to the show, now ever ready to spot a celebrity, we see a boy without tape on his face. In the show the  compare is one of those young comedians who's been on things, but to be honest, I didn't take much of a liking to him and failed to do him the respect of remembering his name in this whole list of comedians. Sorry. Also, earlier in this multi-part blog I said how privleged I felt to be included in comedians shows or "picked on" as people say. The reason I sort of prefer picked on is because the comic has chosen to have a dialogue with you and engage in a bit of banter. It's they're show, they're in charge. Not that I'm against heckling - in fact the last time I was in this venue, I saw the single worst comedy night I have seen, as act after act got heckled off the stage. At one point a double act were going so badly that there was a queue to leave the room, when the straight man from the double act jumped off the stage and joined the back of the queue, instantly reversing the roles of his double act and becoming the funniest part of the night.

I digress (a lot you may have noticed), but my point is there was some knob in the front row who after a brief chat with the compare suddenly believed himself to be the star of the show and would shout out intermittently throughout the gig and attempted at one point to follow the compare onto the stage. He was annoying, but I guess you come to expect that at a late night comedy gig, especially in Edinburgh, everyone's a bit drunk. To his credit, the compare who I didn't like, handled the guy well.

First act on Marcel Lucont. A Frenchman. Well, in actual fact probably an Englishman playing a Frenchman doing jokes about the English. It sounds like a fairly average premise, but thrown in are some poetry, smugness and the fact that - by his own admission - this was his fourth show and he was a little bit drunk. Not surprising as he was accompanied at all times on stage by a glass of red (naturally). I took a massive liking to this character from the off. Very funny character comedy, and I do enjoy discovering new acts at Edinburgh.

Next up was Edinburgh Fringe favourite, award-winner The Boy With Tape On His Face. Being from the past, I love silent comedy, and this guy does silent comedy with audience participation very well. To say too much about his act ruins it slightly for people who might go and see it. But the general act is that he gets people on stage, gives them some props and makes them do something funny. It's all very friendly and I was genuinely a little bit shocked that somebody in the audience refused it. I don't know how - I really must learn his secret - but The Boy manages to create an atmosphere where it's actually not so bad to be called up to the stage. Maybe it's a mix of light-hearted silliness or the fact that you are the centre of attention while you're there. The only awkward bit is when he forced two random strangers to kiss on the stage, but even so, I think they both enjoyed it. Or maybe it was when he repeatedly got the heckler from earlier up only to send him away again immediately. Finally, he got the guy up to perform. He did one of his routines that he's done on TV, where he blindfolds the guy and then puts on some glasses with a basketball hoop and a ball on some string on and nods his head trying to get the ball in the hoop, all the while the blindfolded guy assumes we're laughing at him, but doesn't know why. Simple. Brilliant. Then the guy made some comment into the microphone and the boy seemed very annoyed. This prick had to have the last word, despite just being made the star of the show. In a word, wanker.


Next time: Imaginary friends, Doctor Who and that (relatively) shocking end to our trip.

Fringe Benefits - Day 2

Previously on my Edinburgh Blog: Oh fuck! I met Paul Merton! Oh fuck! I met Suggs. £1.40 for a bus! £3 for a day ticket!

Day 2 - Nutters Of the British Isles: A Complete Field Guide - Espionage - 2:15PM

We had tickets for Paul Merton lined up for the mid-afternoon and bought some Paul Foot tickets for the evening as soon as we hit town, but we were left with some time to kill before my favourite comedian and now personal acquaintance Mr Merton at 4. The thing about Edinburgh is that it's the kind of place where unless you take a few punts on people you don't know, you've done it wrong. Sure you could just go and see Michael McIntyre's ridiculously over priced work-in-progress shows (£31 for something that by it's very nature isn't finished yet? Really? At a festival where between £10 and £15 is a standard and reasonable ticket price?), and you'd be guaranteed a good time, but you'd also be wrong in your whole approach to Edinburgh and frankly people like you make me sick! (Too much?)

But it needn't cost you the world, or worse still the price of a Michael McIntyre ticket, to see something that may well turn out to be not very good. There are tonnes of free shows taking place in pubs all over the city, and thanks to a flyer and a convenient time we chose to check out the Nutters Of The British Isles. As I say you run the risk of seeing a bad show and this was, I'm afraid, one of them. At it's heart was some basic observational comedy, pointing out different groups of people and analysing what makes them weird with the help of lots of audience participation. To be fair, it seemed to go down with mixed results in the crowd, a few loved it, some liked it, about half sat in complete silence, or uncomfortably stood in complete silence because they clearly hadn't expected these crowds when they booked the venue. It cant have helped that I was stood at the back, in the dark, a long way from the stage and was therefore not really part of it. I had the bar forming a kind of proscenium arch between me and the stage, alienating and, quite literally, distancing me from the performance (all right Brecht! Jeez). Not that there was anything they could do about the size and layout of the venue.

There was a tall one who did the observational stuff and led the show, and a short one who reacted and said silly things. It's not a particularly inspiring way of doing a double act. Not that original either. They had a couple of good jokes, but to retell either of them here would ruin half of their good stuff, so I don't want to.

Paul Merton's Impro Chums - Pleasance Grand - 4PM

We arrived early and joined the queue - although we're now friends, I didn't want to impose on Mr Merton by asking for queue jump. As we arrived the audience were leaving from that most prestigious of theatrical happenings An Evening With David Hasselhoff. If the guys from the A Guide To Nutters show wanted to do some further research into the subject, I would suggest they start with the kind of crowd The Hoff attracts. Predominantly they are weirdos. What David Hasselhoff does to them for an hour, I can't fathom. I don't know what he does outside of running in slow motion. I mean, I'm hoping he didn't subject them to this kind of thing:

My apologies. I forgot to warn you that that clip contains scenes of graphic Piers Morgan's smug fucking face that some viewers might be uncomfortable with. Incidentally that clip is from the program America's Got Talent or to give it it's full title America's Got Talent So Can We Get Rid Of This Prick Now. Sadly Piers Morgan's evil was on the judging panel and acquited Hoff of any crimes against music, despite the lady-judge's reaction to Hoff grooming a much younger backing singer. That unmistakable look of: "Well this just got awkward."

Anyway, Paul Merton's Impro Chums: This is the comedy show I've seen more times than any other, because it's different every time and - on what I think is my sixth time of seeing it - I can confirm that it really is. There are lots of improvisational acts in Edinburgh, a lot of the ones I've seen are very good (generally speaking the earlier in the evening the better as they're not pandering to the suggestions of drunken audiences, but there are some great late night ones who thrive off that and do well). A lot of the improv acts have their own spin on it (improvising a musical, a story, some new games etc.). But these are the legends of improv comedy. They've been doing it since before I was born and they have got very good at it. Merton, you know from Have I Got News For You, can deliver the witty line at just the right time to steal the show, but the others too are all regulars of London's Comedy Store Players (anyone free, any Sunday ever, drop me a text and we'll go see them. Legends.). Richard Vranch is the man who used to play the piano on Whose Line Is It Anyway? but if that's all you know him for, he'll impress you so much more when he's actually playing in the games. Lee Simpson is one of the wittiest comedians you'll see improvising and it's a tragic failure of the TV industry that you probably don't know who he is. Mike McShane can make songs up on the spot, it's an incredible talent. Suki Webster is Paul Merton's wife - and during a scene where she was a stripper he continued to interrupt to protect her dignity, it was quite sweet really. It's such a ridiculously mad cliche to assume that two comedians living together would be the cause of non-stop laughter, but it's kind of impossible to imagine these two not just making jokes of everything. In fact I would like to believe that all of the Impro Chums live in a big house in the country and have a whale of a time. Occasionally popping over for tea, as he did on this day, would be Greg Proops, of Whose Line...hair, glasses, and American fame. He became the unexpected star of this fringe for us, and this was Proops sighting number 1. Keep reading for more. For now, lets just say it was a pleasure to see a man so witty, gelling so well with the Merton chums and being bloody hilarious too.

Paul Foot: Kenny Larch is Dead - Belly Dancer - 7:30PM

To clear up what I know is a confusing paragraph heading, Belly Dancer is the name of the venue, Paul Foot did not do belly dancing. Though if you've seen him live you'd certainly believe it's possible he might. If you like to think about jokes and try to make sense of them, do not see Paul Foot, your brain will hurt. If you like complete randomness (at one point, he just reels off meaningless sentence after unconnected meaningless sentence) that just is funny and you'll never be able to work out why, see this show. The stories flow randomly from one to another without need for satisfying links, although he ties them all together near the end, after a brief look at Supermarket Puns which are the only conventional jokes of the show.

As we'd had a couple of hours between shows, we'd arrived early to get ourselves centre front-row seats again. To be honest, this hardly seems necessary as the stigma of sitting in the front row is feared amongst comedy punters. Personally, I have never been particularly afraid to sit in the front row. I also have aspirations to be a performer so maybe that's not surprising, I'm quite definitely the weird one. But I think to be part of the show is an honour. If you've never done it, sit in the front row of a comedian who "picks on" (stupid term) the front row, it's actually really kind of exciting when they chat to you. Prior to this Simon Amstell had taken the piss out of my having legs at his 2008 fringe show and on Norman Lovett's DVD when someone in the audience puts their hand up to indicate that they think they're God. That's me. I'm not really clear on the DVD, just as well as my hair is stupid, but it led to a very pleasing moment when he recognised me after another gig a few months later.

Norman Lovett and the man he referred to as God (ironically)

This time, Paul Foot shouted in my face - very close to my face - that I didn't care about the seriousness of actress, Sue Johnston (The Royle Family) having to take a month off work. We both tried intensely to hold eye-contact, but I found it impossible not to laugh making him shout more. Thom was also shouted down for making Paul's notes disappear. It was very fun and a bit of a weird thrill.

Night Out In Edinburgh

I'd been to Edinburgh before, but always with the family never with friends, so a night off from the entertainment of the festival had to be arranged to sample the night life of the city and to try a Bucky bomb. It's a shot of Buckfast in a glass of Irn Bru. It's proper Scottish. We'd heard it on good authority (Sandi Toksvig at a News Quiz recording) that it fucks you up. When I googled it for more information, I discovered that a website, which rather grandiosely calls it a "cocktail," says that "Out of 25 visits. 0 people gave this a thumbs up." It didn't fuck us up though, in fact it was rather pleasant and only £2 ("cocktail" pah!). So I bought two more, always wise with a drink that doesn't fuck you up the first time. Actually, drunkenness-wise this was a relatively tame and sober night, not that you'd be able to tell from my dancing, as somebody put a room that played cheesy music next to the bar and so over-the-top jumping around and camp hand gestures had to occur. Certain friends will know what I mean when I say "Full on Dakota first year dancing." Others will have to extrapolate what I did from the information: I still have bruises. Still, I was glad not to be too drunk and to have sweated out the Bucky bombs, because Scotland had now been exposed to my best moves and I had an early (that means before 1pm in Edinburgh's drinking culture) start tomorrow to see a play.



Next time: A day of non-stop shows, some plays, some Proops and late night Frenchness.

Fringe Benefits - Day 1

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.)

Nothing, in fact, went wrong, but that's not how it seemed at 4am on Tuesday when I had to wake up for our journey to the airport. Our flights were early and cheap and, remarkably painless. For precisely this reason I'm in two minds about this Scottish independence thing, on the one hand, I love how easy and relatively comfortable all the airport shenanigans involved with an internal flight are, but I also wish there was one of those pretty stamps in my passport to commemorate this trip, rather than simply a print out with my name, flight time, a bar code and a list of hand-luggage restrictions. Conversely, I also believe on a metaphorical third hand that you should stop being silly Scottish nationalists. God if the SNP are successful, it'll make my holidaying as stressful as everyone else's, plus they wont pay any child support to us to help bring up Wales.

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.

Next time: We see a terrible show, more encounters with a comedy legend and some dancing.