Aug 28 (Day 26) Thats all folks.

In an effort to get my show tally up to 50 shows I booked two shows I had been intending to see all month. These were a comedy/theatre show called "Those Magnificent Men" and a tribute/impersonation show about Tommy Cooper called "Jus' Like That". I actually ended up going to four shows AND doing a tour of the vaults, so it was a big day and a great way to go out. 

The first show for today was "Those Magnificent Men", a comic theatrical production about Alcock & Brown, two English aviators who were the first to cross the Atlantic in a single flight. This was a great show, well played and with excellent stage setting, lighting and use of sound effects. There weren't so many "LOL" moments but it was light-hearted and just generally really well done, with the two actors actually constructing the main set-piece - their plane - as part of the story. A really great tribute to the two pilots and also to the hundreds of other names out there who were the "firsts" in their own field whose names are now fading into history.

I had a wait until the Tommy Cooper show started so in the mean-time I grabbed a ticket to a show I hadn't heard of previously but which was yet another one of those ones that turned out to be right up my alley. "The Fitzrovia Radio Hour" was a spoof of an old-time radio program with five actors on stage (3 male and 2 female) in which they play out their radio show as if it was going live-to-air. Replete with inventive sound-effects, stereo-typical 1940's radio voices, scripts of Nazi-hunting schoolboys, Cornish Mining dramas and the birth of product placement, this was one of the best shows I saw for the whole fringe. All actors played their "radio" parts really well and what made it even better was the "behind-the-scenes" drama happening for the live audience (one of the actors drinks a little too much and there is some serious flirting going on between multiple cast members etc) although I thought this could have gone even further. All took part in performing the sound effects as required and it was generally a brilliantly choreographed song-and-dance to ensure that everyone was where they were needed to be at all times. Absolutely fantastic.

I then went to see the Tommy Cooper show which was another highlight of not only the day but the entire fringe. The actor playing Cooper was amazing, taking on his every (and there are a lot!) mannerism, his delivery, his voice...everything about this was brilliant. If you don't know much about Tommy Cooper, he is well worth looking up because he had a truly original act that was a mixture of about a thousand different things all brought together seamlessly. Think slap-stick absurdist magician with a pun for every occasion and you're on the right track. What really highlighted this act was the opening scene, set behind-the-scenes in Cooper's dressing room which has its comic moments but highlights the sadness behind Cooper's on-stage persona and the drinking that eventually brought about his death. A wonderful show.

After my tour of the vaults beneath the city, I picked up a ticket to see Glenn Wool. Wool is a Canadian performer who has built up a solid following in the UK and Canada and has a slick, confident stand-up style that shows he has been doing this for years. I had never seen or heard of him before and went in with no expectations at all. He was very funny but as with a lot of the bigger names in the Fringe, I think that the laughter for a lot of their jokes is actually bigger than deserved. I found a lot of his jokes to be either very predictable or that I had heard them (or a variation) before and I wasn't doubled-over with laughter like a few people in the crowd. 

What a month it has been. There have been a lot of highlights, some amazing things seen and learned and generally it has given me a positive outlook about a lot of different things. With the writing I have been doing, it has given me the idea that I am at least heading in the right direction. Whether that is true or not will be seen sometime in the near future when I produce and host my first Burlesque/Cabaret Showcase in Adelaide. What I have seen has been overwhelmingly positive that even if the material you are working with right now doesn't quite work, that people will still find good in what you are doing, whether its from your performance personally or that they can see what it was you were trying to do. Whether that will be the case in Australia (where we are renowned for cutting down not only the tall poppies) is yet to be seen. But I will give it a crack and I know that at least one of the genres (from Stand-up, Sketch, Sitcom, Presentation and Cabaret) will resonate personally and hopefully with an audience too. Cheers!