# A visit to the Edinburgh Fringe.



## Chris Hobson (Aug 17, 2019)

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival was something that I have been vaguely aware of for as long as I can remember. I don't think that this vague awareness would ever have changed if not for my daughter who loves all things theatrical. Hannah went to Keele University and immediately joined the Keele Drama Society. Her play 'Rich Hyde Homicide' a satire on 1980s murder mystery TV shows was taken by KDS to the fringe in 2017. We went to see the play at Keele rather than attending the Fringe. KDS chose a different play writer for the 2018 Fringe but for 2019 Hannah's play Hangnail was chosen. So this time, her mum and dad decided to go to the Fringe Festival, see Hannah's play in its proper context and take in any other shows that took our fancy.

Our accommodation was a BNB arranged by my wife Liz who is very good at this kind of thing. It was basically one corner of a Georgian mansion. This small bit of it was bigger than our entire house, it was very nice and quite posh. The location was far enough away from the noisy bustle of the Fringe, but close enough for us to walk to the town centre, quite a long walk but I always need exercise.

There are so many shows going on at this event that even if you did nothing else but attend shows, you would only see about 1% of the total. It is worth noting that the entry fees are really cheap compared with what you would normally pay for these kinds of events. Every where that you go there are people pushing leaflets into your hands. So we took some leaflets, looked through them, and decided what to go and see. Here are some brief reviews of the shows that we went to see.

Hangnail.
Obviously we went to see this one because our daughter wrote the script. It is the story of an up and coming all girl rock band. The hangnail refers to the fact that one of the girls was drugged and raped three years ago by the guy who has a huge amount of influence when it comes to up and coming bands getting on. The other girls can't understand what the hell her problem is and inevitably it all comes pouring out. The play has quite a lot of humour in it but some of the jokes tended to be a bit too clever which means that they seemed to go completely over the heads of the audience.

The Canary and the Crow.
The story of a black kid who was the son of a single mum. He won a scholarship to a posh school and wrote a play about his experiences with rap music. I was sort of dragged to this one, expecting to hate it. In fact it was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Great story telling with quite a bit of humour.

Beach Body Ready.
This was a piece about three girls who used to be really unhappy about their bodies. It was a mixture of live action and video. Two of them were big girls who had been miserable about being overweight. The other girl was slim but had a slightly odd shaped figure and she had a problem with that. There were plenty of jokes but also a sad, serious side. The message seemed to be that you need to ignore what tiny minded morons think about you and just be yourself.

The Gospel according to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy.
A white room with a table and chair in it. The room is a kind of limbo where these three famous characters arrive. They speculate about where they are and what is going on. They all give their differing views about religion, well Christianity actually. Then they are all challenged by each other to give an honest appraisal of their lives, all hoping to move on to the next stage of the afterlife.

Showstopper.
This is a group that we have seen several times before. It is an improv show that involves writing a musical theatre production based on ideas shouted out by the audience. It is different every time and is always brilliantly funny. Part of the fun is trying to work out how the hell they manage to do it, making up dialogue and songs on the spot.

Sensemaker.
I was handed a leaflet about this one and thought that it looked really interesting and suggested to Liz that we should go to see it. It was a satire on the subject of automated telephone systems that have recorded voices telling you to do stuff in order to get where you need to go. It was a one woman show and the very attractive lady did an amazing mime routine following instructions given to her by a recorded voice. These were punctuated by tedious repetitions of an electronic version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. The problem was that, about three quarters of the way through the show, the recorded voice told her to take her clothes off. She stripped down to her knickers and bra hoping that that would be enough, the recorded voice continued to repeat “take off your clothes please thank you” so eventually she stripped off completely. So I was left telling Liz that I definitely did not know that was going to happen. Later, I took another look at the leaflet and saw that nudity was listed in the small print bit that warns sensitive folk about things that might upset them.

Forbidden Fruit.
This was a very silly comedy about a rich widow and and a guy who visits her and tries to seduce her. Before the play the names of the five characters are put into a hat and drawn out at random to see who plays which part. There are 120 possible combinations so presumably if you go to see it lots of times it would be unlikely that it would be the same twice. More often than not this results in women playing male parts and men playing women of course. There is something inherently funny about a woman playing a lascivious male and the man playing the widow's maid just came over as hilariously camp. All in all it was great fun.

Mitch Ben.
People who have listened to The Now Show on Radio 4 will know who Mitch Ben is. He is a singer and guitarist who does mainly humorous songs with clever and witty lyrics. The show was a little too political for my tastes but still very entertaining and funny. After the show we bought a little memory stick with a big chunk of his back catalogue on it.

The weather forecast for the week was quite grim but it actually turned out to be not too bad. There was plenty of sunshine and only a few light showers and one thunder storm with a heavy downpour. We managed to last the week without getting too wet. The journey home involved getting stuck in two traffic jams on the A1 so it took us nine hours. Altogether it was great fun and an interesting experience. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys live theatre.


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## Pine Marten (Aug 17, 2019)

Well done, Hannah!  There's nothing quite like live theatre, which is why I'm a volunteer usher at our local theatre.

I've been to the Fringe a couple of times with my kids, and to be honest there are enough street performances to see that there isn't necessarily time to book shows as well - I agree that it's great fun and I also would recommend it to anyone keen on live theatre


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## KARNAK (Aug 17, 2019)

Well done Hannah and glad you had a good time Chris & Liz.


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## Andy HB (Aug 20, 2019)

On the subject of 'the best joke at the festival'  why are they almost universally pretty unfunny jokes? Although, I quite liked Milton Jones' one about what's driving Brexit? Well, for me it looks like the Duke of Edinburgh.


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## nonethewiser (Aug 20, 2019)

Struggle with some alternative comedy but sounds like you both at a great time.

Priced up some hotels b&b during Fringe and prices are ridiculous, up to 3x what we normally pay for Edinburgh, off there for a couple of days next wednesday at normal cost.


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## C&E Guy (Aug 20, 2019)

nonethewiser said:


> Struggle with some alternative comedy but sounds like you both at a great time.
> 
> Priced up some hotels b&b during Fringe and prices are ridiculous, up to 3x what we normally pay for Edinburgh, off there for a couple of days next wednesday at normal cost.



Cheaper to stay outside Edinburgh and take the train or tram into the centre.

Mrs C&E and younger daughter went to a show last week. Parked at Bathgate and took the train.


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## Chris Hobson (Aug 21, 2019)

Our accomodation cost £100 per night for four people. As mentioned in the OP it was rather classy and very spacious. We had to feed ourselves but the kitchen was very well equipped. I considered it to be good value before someone here mentioned prices being hiked up during the festival, so actually it was even more so.

Regarding staying further away and travelling, we went to see the musical Once in London's West End. We stayed at a Travel Lodge in Milton Keynes that was close to the railway station and travelled in and out of London by train.

Regarding alternative comedy. To me this was a thing in the eighties when jokes involving sexist and racist stereotypes became really unfunny and were challenged by the up and coming comics of the time.

I wasn't aware that it was still a thing, as far as I see it now, something is either funny or it isn't. One of the highlights of the week was when the Showstoppers were challenged to do a song in the style of Joseph. The made up on the spot plot had already established the singer as a lady of rather easy virtue so instead of a list of colours she sang a list of men's names.


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## missclb (Aug 22, 2019)

Ahh, good for you Chris – there's so much going on in Edinburgh during August, it's a great place to be! I'm loving your approach to choosing your shows too. I used to work for the agency that designed the printed programme of events, so I got a chance to check it all out and decide on which tickets I wanted to buy, well ahead of the general public. As soon as they were available to book, I was on it.


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