Aug 25 (Day 23)

Another workshop today that was about adapting your Fringe show for screen. Didn't really apply to me because I haven't done a Fringe show (...yet) but it was worth going to anyway. Saw some good people do their stuff on stage and screen, heard from clever people like Tim Key and Miranda Hart and had a good time in general.

Then I went and caught a random sketch show called "Friends With You" by a female duo called Christmas For Two. As has been the case with a lot of the sketch shows, there was a lot of good stuff to see but pretty much an equal amount of "not quite" stuff that could have been dropped altogether or that went on far too long past the point of "we get it". Admittedly, a lot of them write, produce and direct themselves and this may be where they fall down - a writer would either cut it earlier or improve it when seeing it performed or  a director would probably tell them to cut it or at least put them in a different juxtaposition that would improve a weak sketch. And there is also the question of time - shows have to be at least 50 mins long, so when the comedians are doing it all, I'm sure they know some of the material will be weaker but they might need it to make the show go for long enough. Both performers were again excellent (the TALENT in Edinburgh is astonishing) and there were some really great sketches but if I were to tell them one thing, it would be to focus less on punchlines and strengthen the characters, because as with Brown & Corley when the characters are mental, the punchlines don't matter.

After this I went to the Spiegeltent for a (non-comedy!) vocal group called The Magnets. This is a beat-box/vocal/acapella group and they are just incredible. When you understand that the only instruments on stage are their voices, it is really amazing what they are capable of doing. They had just finished a tour of Australia starting with the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and will be back for Adelaide Fringe and if you get a chance, go and see them.
The last show I saw after watching the second Hearts vs Spurs game on the TV at a pub called "The Southsider". As luck would have it, they had comedy on there too and I didn't even know before I went in and the next show on after the football was a young Kiwi comedian named Nick Gibb in his show "Crumpled Antipodean Dandy". The flyer said Gibb was the 2011 Winner of "New Zealand's Biggest comedy award the "Billy T" which I previously had not heard of. The show proved to be a good one, with Gibb taking us through his life with Tourette's syndrome and his dealings with drugs, rough neighbours and his life in Palmerston North. He is a very funny young bloke and will only get better. The only criticism I can think of was that he digressed too often, digressing within digressions and getting too far off the track and then struggling to get back on it. But other than that, excellent stuff.

Daily Show Count : 2
Total Shows Seen: 42

Workshops Count: 2