I thought the city was busy yesterday but today took the cake and wouldn't bring it back. I wanted that cake. Apparently Saturday will be even busier because Festival is still a novelty and everyone is still getting their bearings, picking up tickets, and blah de blah, so yeah, basically the city was mayhem and is about to double the quotient of May and triple the hem. Sounds good to me.
Had planned to see 3 shows today and ended up seeing 4. Originally I only booked 2 but when I got here the Scotsman newspaper was offering freebies so I got as many as I could from whatever was left. So the free show that I got to see today was a sampler called "Funny Women". This is a good idea, where a number of the funny women (hence the name) doing shows come in and do a 10 minute bit to showcase their wares to try to get you to see their show...or know which one to avoid. The cast changes every day and in today's line-up there were some hits and a couple of misses, but nothing too bad. My Blue Ribbon would have gone to Clare Lomas, a musical comedienne who actually changed her routine when the crowd didn't know the person she was about to reference, which was nice. Shirley & Shirley...uh... touched on incest which clearly put a few people off but I think it was really good to see women writing and performing edgy stuff. The host, a young Canuck named Mae Martin was really good and I want to go see her full show. After that I went wandering again and was handed a freebie to a show called "Excess Baggage" which was about a newlywed couple on the way to their honeymoon when they encounter difficulties at the airport and have to resolve them along with some personal issues. The cast were good but the material was a bit dull.
Next came Caroline Mabey with her show "One Minute Silence". This was a show so random that it almost defies description. It's equal parts Powerpoint Presentation and Life Coaching Seminar mixed with the voices in Mabey's head, some name calling (I was labelled "Maggot" and made to wear a heart-shaped post-it note with Maggot written on it) and otherwise hilarious randomness that I found very appealing. If Caroline Mabey and Sam Simmons were to hook up, I'm sure it would be the End of Days.
The last outing for tonight was to see Dan Clark, a UK comedian with a sitcom on BBC3 (and a pretty good vintage having appeared on a French & Saunders Christmas Special, The Mighty Boosh and in Only Fools and Horses). This was held in a larger theatre which was packed - his stand-up was confidently delivered but as is often the case when someone is off the TV, the laughs were usually bigger than the jokes deserved. Not to say his jokes weren't funny, because they were, but you know. There was some good stuff there that I especially identified with about being "on-line addicted" and checking your Twitter, Email and Facebook every two seconds but the funniest bit was when he went into the soundtrack of him losing his virginity. I thought he was at his funniest with his musical numbers and should do even more of it throughout the show. A really good show, well worth the 6 quid preview price.
Daily Show Count : 4
Total Shows Seen: 9
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