They Call Us Legends

Blog about Britcom and whatever else comes into my head, by a Canadian with a severe allergy to brevity, championing the cause of the Chocolate Milk Gang Preservation Society. // Andy Zaltzman isn't available in your garden and I will be in the ocean for the next few days. Daniel Kitson gave me his nightmares. And John Oliver is the worst. Or the one that got to me the most. With his hair.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So, on this other website where I'm writing reviews, I'm using a picture of their poster as the feature image. And I'm trying to use photos that I've taken of their physical poster displayed somewhere in Edinburgh, rather than grabbing an image off the internet, because I like the idea of it reflecting the physical reality, or something.

Edinburgh is entirely covered in posters right now, which makes it very frustrating when I'm looking for a specific poster because I know I'm going to review that show. Because we are so bombarded by posters and flyers and when I want one it's not there.

I just saw Hannah Platt at the Pleasance Courtyard, and it was a really good show, afterward I walked around the Courtyard, scanning all the poster-filled walls in search of a Hannah Platt one. Nothing. I start to try the other side of the venue, but realize Nish Kumar is standing over there, chatting to someone. I panic and definitely cannot go over there because I will be super weird if I have to be anywhere near him.

So I keep scanning the posters on my side, reading all the names while thinking "Hannah Platt Hannah Platt which one is Hannah Platt don't stare at Nish Kumar Hannah Platt yes I know he's over there just be normal Hannah Platt". And every once in a while I have a quick glance just to see if Nish Kumar is still there, and after a while he isn't, which is good because I've checked everywhere on my side and it apparently contains posters for every single show at this festival except Hannah Platt's. Now I can finally go look around the other side.

So I go do that, I see some blank space on walls and think "Wow they're really wasting ad space there, by not having posters". Which is an absurd thing to think while at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, that there are too many walls without posters.

I finally give up, but I've spent so much time looking for it that I have to rush to my next show, so I start speed walking out of the venue, while not looking where I'm going because I'm trying to scan the surfaces for posters still, and then have to stop extremely short because I've come within about a centimetre of ploughing full speed into a large unmoving object, I look up and object is Nish Kumar, he hadn't left the area he'd just moved around a bit, I immediately run away. On my way out I see a Hannah Platt poster out of the corner of my eye, but am too worried about being weird around Nish Kumar to stop and take a picture of it.

It's been a busy week. Hannah Platt's show was actually awesome. I'm in line for Nick Helm now. I think my brain might be fried, or at least frying.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

There's a show called Manwatching. Here's it's blurb in the Edinburgh programme:

I read this when it first appeared and thought that sounds like a painfully cringeworthy gimmick. The joke is going to be "middle-aged man says stuff that's only supposed to be said by women, like that penises are sexually attractive or what it's like to have a vagina. But it'll be a man saying it, isn't that crazy?

So I had no interest in it, until a week ago, when I read that the performer on the 15th will be David O'Doherty. I immediately bought a ticket because I would watch David O'Doherty do literally anything.

For the first 10 minutes or so, the joke was exactly what I'd expected it to be, and it was boring. But it got a lot better by the end. It was funny on its own merits, not just because it's a man reading a woman's thing. The fact of it being a man reading the material wasn't so much a joke, as a way to let the extremely explicit discussion pf sexual desire and opinions be more honest; the anonymous writer said several times that she'd never talk so frankly about this if she were reading it herself. That's an interesting concept, and the ruminations were thought-provoking.

It was funny, but felt far more like theatre than stand-up, and I don't know enough about theatre so I'm not going to try to review that on the site where I'm writing reviews. I have no idea how I'd review that anyway. But I'm glad I went, and not just because it was a chance to see DO'D do something and I'm a big fan of that.

Anyway, on the way out, the woman who'd been sitting beside me started telling her friends that that was really good, and the guy who read it really hot, like cool to hear him read a treatise on female desire because he's the subject of hers. She then turned to me, and asked if I'd liked the show. I said, yes. She said, "And he's hot, the guy on stage. Like, in a Daddy way. Don't you think?" And I said, "Yeah, sure." Because I was not about to explain to a strange woman in a venue we're getting shooed out of that - I mean, he's not my type, but my type is women so that doesn't have anything to do with him, and I do have a sufficiently deep obsession with him so that if men were my type I'm sure I'd agree with you, and I'm glad everyone's having a good time.

Then she started talking to her friends again, and told them she really liked him in The IT Crowd, but after that show he got too famous so not as hot, but now he's gotten older and even hotter. I spent a moment trying to remember when DO'D was in The IT Crowd, and then I realized they'd never actually said his name on stage, and because the cast rotates he's not in the flyer or programme entry either (I only knew it would be him because they posted it on Instagram and someone posted the Instagram info on a message board I read), and she thinks he's Chris O'Dowd.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I've not been updating on here about the Edinburgh shows I watch, but I've posted reviews of almost all of them on here:

Well, that's my real name. I usually avoid putting my real name on Tumblr, but there it is. Please don't dox me by, like, telling my employers that I'm really into late-night comedy videos from 2003, or whatever.

I've written a review of nearly every show I've seen in Edinburgh so far (I initially made one post for the whole day, but then my friend who set up the site said it's better if each review is a separate post, because they're getting shared on Instagram, which is wild to me but apparently fine). The exceptions are:

In Conversation with Josie Long, which I didn't review because it was Josie Long getting interviewed and it would be weird to review and interview, but she was fascinating and cool and it was a great time

Swamplesque, because I don't know nearly enough about drag or musical theatre or burlesque to review that (people danced and sometimes lip synched and took most but not quite all of their clothes off, to music, while wearing costumes from Shrek - it was entertaining but I don't think I needed a whole hour of it)

Tom Mayhew, because it was an extremely early WIP to an extremely small audience, he had some good ideas but it seems unfair to review at such a rough stage

Jack Ansett, because we're not doing negative reviews on that site and this is the only show I've seen so far that I disliked, it underran by 20 minutes and he was mostly just showing off about being a dick on the internet

Jack Ansett did do a thing in his show where he had audience members send in their name beforehand, which turned out to be so he could look them up on social media, and create them in the Sims. When he got to my name, he asked who I was, I raised my hand, and he said he hasn't made a Sim of me because I was too hard to track down online. Which I liked hearing. My only social media is a Facebook account that's private to my friends only, and that I've not posted on since 2019, I only keep it around so I can chat on Messenger; and this Tumblr, which I keep anonymous - usually, mostly, aside from this post that links to a page with my real name in big letters. And the whole point of Tumblr is that no one of any note is on here and you can make posts that you'll be pretty confident will be seen by six other weird nerds and no one else.

Now the reviews I write are getting shared on Instagram, which is definitely fine, right? I'm not planning to see Jack Ansett again, so at least I don't have to worry about him making Sims of me based on that.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Nish Kumar has a bit in his previous stand-up show where he says someone caught him yelling about the Tories (while on the phone to his brother) in public, and they posted online that apparently it's not a character. He's the same on stage as in real life.

Today, I was at the Pleasance Courtyard, standing in line for Hasan Al-Habib's show. I was standing in front of the water fountain and the most soft-spoken, polite voice I've ever heard in Edinburgh whispered a profuse apology as he stuck his water bottle into the fountain behind me, despite the fact that he has every right to do this and no one else in the crowded August Edinburgh has ever apologized for mildly being in someone's space (if that became the norm, no one in this city would ever get anything done). He filled his water bottle while muttering something hesitant about possibly being in the way. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Where no one has ever hesitated to be in the way.

It was such unusual behaviour that I had a look at the guy, realized who he was, and then immediately had to do my "look at the sky and be so normal and pretend I've not just recognized someone", which I've worked on a lot this week.

Anyway, the point is that I think Li Jin Hao (I've previously written about him on this blog as Jin Hao Li because he performed under that name, but has now changed it, I'm guessing to be more accurate to the language it's in) and his soft-spoken whimsey may also not be a character. He then joined the line and was in the audience at the Hasan Al-Habib show, which was a great show that I'll write about later because now I have to go listen to Emma Holland talk about her dead dog.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I think I was expecting there would be a plot of some sort. I was incorrect.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I'm not seeing any shows until 7 PM today. I left this day clear so I could go do tourist-y Edinburgh stuff, but I woke up with a sore throat and coughing a bit, and have decided to use the free day to rest and hope that'll have me recovered by tomorrow. It turns out that your brain is supposed to have breaks sometimes. Maybe I'll go have lunch in Leith.

Last year I got really sick on my last night in Edinburgh. It sucked to be sick for the train to London and the plane ride home, and then I was sick for several more days, but I found it impressive that my body had held out for the entire trip, only getting sick at the end. That was an 8-day trip, and I figured that if my body can only handle exactly 8 days of Edinburgh Festival-ing, I should be concerned about this trip being 15 days here. I'm not super worried about that because 1) it's easier this time around due not getting up early to Kitson every morning, more sleep makes a big difference, and 2) I'm seeing fewer shows per day this time, usually between 5 and 7, while last year was 8 or 9 every day. Also, now that I've gotten sick on the one day I've booked off, it appears that my body is pretty good at just holding up until I get to lie down for a bit.

I'm trying to write about the shows I saw yesterday, though I'm finding my brain a bit scrambled and that's going slower than usual (luckily I've got time). I'm writing on an actual website, which gets shared on Instagram where the actual comedians are, and it's interesting to see the difference between writing there and here. A big one is trying to avoid spoilers - I try to avoid major spoilers on Tumblr, but I'll reference stuff from the show if it's relevant, and if I really want to talk about major spoilers, I'll just put in a cut and a spoiler warning for it. On this actual website, which might be read by actual people looking for Fringe recommendations, I try to really avoid spoilers about content, and just say how I liked it. That means less scope for actual analysis, which is fine, because if there's a show I want to significantly analyze, I can just do that on Tumblr with a spoiler warning (though I probably won't do that until after I get back to London, as I'm so busy here).

Though I saw Olga Koch's show yesterday, and thought I have a lot of things to say about the specific content and messages in it - I agree with a lot of it, but I think I disagree with some, and it's complicated, and interesting. And I thought it's a shame I can't get into all that on the actual website without major spoilers; I'll maybe do that on Tumblr some other time. But then I was reading reviews that were printed on the walls in the Pleasance Dome, and they'd printed a Guardian one that basically gives the whole thing away, including late-show plot twists. I'm not a fan anyway of the guy who wrote that, but this seems bad even for him.

Anyway, the biggest difference I didn't expect was perspective taking. On Tumblr, I'll generally write "I liked [thing]" or "I didn't like [thing]" or "I thought [thing] was" or "I wasn't sure about [thing]". I'll also add in context of my own perspective, like "I usually don't like thing things like [thing], but I thought this was..." or "I have trouble understanding this type of [thing], so it was less accessible to me", or "of course this [thing] was exactly the type of thing I love so that's going to colour my reaction to it". It would feel arrogant of me to say it differently: "This [thing] is good", "This [thing] is bad", "This [thing] is confusing". Comedy is so subjective, I even feel weird saying "this was funny" instead of "it made me laugh". And I definitely would not want to say "this wasn't funny" instead of "I didn't find it funny".

I do sometimes say an unequivocal "This was amazing" or "This was hilarious" on Tumblr, but I'm usually doing that to make a hyperbolic point about much I loved it. Like, this thing was so great that I'm going to suggest it transcends my personal opinion and is just, objectively, great. Obviously that's not literally true because all art is subjective, but it makes the point.

On the actual website, I've done some couching things in the language of my own perspective, but I've found myself trying to avoid it. Because that's not how professional reviews sound. Professionalism dictates that it's not supposed to be about the reviewer's individual opinion, it's supposed to be objective (which something like this never ever can be but we're supposed to get as close as possible). Steve Bennett doesn't use the word "I" (much), and he certainly doesn't say "I don't have the background to understand all the nuances in this type of clowning, so I know I missed some of what was going on."

Obviously I'm not trying to be Steve Bennett. Well maybe I am a bit. It's an interesting exercise, anyway. Writing this down has given my brain a brief break while I try to write reviews of yesterday's shows.

Here's some stuff I will not write on the official professional website: more wild comedian spotting! Saw Mark Watson on the street twice, both times I was so normal about it. I pulled my hat down over my face and walked quickly in the opposite direction. One of those times that was where I was going anyway. The other time I actually wanted to go the same way as him, but could not handle the idea of walking parallel to him, so I walked the wrong way for a bit and came back from a different street.

Also, last night I was walking back from the Pleasance Dome, and I passed this corner where last year, I was walking there late at night and heard a drunk person yelling drunkenly. Not aggressively or anything, just obviously drunk and singing a song. I had a look as I walked past, and was amused to realize it was Thom Tuck. Today, as I walked by, I remembered that corner and imagined it would be funny if he were there again. I had a look as I walked by, and Thom Tuck was there again, which I found so odd that I stopped to make absolutely sure I was right, which I was. He was holding a guitar and drinking a pint. Apparently that's just the corner where Thom Tuck goes at night. Two blocks later I was still so thrown off by this that I nearly walked into Mark Silcox on the sidewalk.

Also, Scout Boxall in the audience at Kemah Bob, and someone whom I'm almost sure was Felicity Ward, but could have just been another woman with curly hair, in the audience at Jordan Brookes. Both fantastic shows.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I'm writing about the Edinburgh shows I see for an actual website that my friend has recently set up. Last year these would have been Tumblr posts, this year they're on there. It's really cool and my friend who set it up is awesome (it'll have contributions from several people including me, the others being London-based comedy fans who've been going to this stuff in person for ages and therefore know far more about comedy than I do so you should read their stuff too), and he's sharing it on Instagram where real people can see it so that's definitely fine and not intimidating at all (no seriously though, it is freaking me out but also very cool and I'm glad I'm doing it).

Anyway, here are the first three days of my Edinburgh shows.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well, Ahir Shah just made me cry in a theatre. Jesus Christ he's done it again. And by "it", I specifically mean making me cry. He has a long history of that. But anyway, we have to just blow past that now so I can eat this Mosque Kitchen curry and go see Phil Nichol.

Phil Nichol is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, a building I have never been inside, because it was closed for the past two years. It's a big deal because this is the building where Cowgate took place, I can finally see the actual site! I expected that experience to feel emotional, though I didn't expect to do it while feeling quite so emotional about the specific topic of Ahir Shah's mental health journey.

Phil Nichol's show The Naked Racist is a great way to pay my respects to the sacred site of the seminal CMG event, because it's a fairly CMG show, despite Phil Nichol very much not being a CMG comedian. In fact, he's sort of the opposite. They were named the CMG for being the nerdy comedians, as opposed to the party comedians of that generation, such as Phil Nichol (Andrew Maxwell, Jason Byrne, Glenn Wool, there's an absolute dick named David McSavage who fancied himself their opposition - basically they were apparently getting bullied by the Irish and the Canadians). But that means Phil Nichol was of that generation (he's older, actually, but comedy generations), and part of the circumstances that created them.

The Naked Racist is a fantastic show that I've seen a video of before, it's currently being brought back because it's the 20th anniversary of when it won the Perrier Award, in 2006. I was very impressed when I watched this show on my laptop, I also thought, this would be fucking intense to see live, because I'm very sex-positive and pro-non-sexual nudity in a theoretical and political way; I'm squeamish/repressed as fuck about that sort of thing, in an actual practical way. And this show contains quite a lot of nudity. I did see someone get naked at Stamptown last year and realized it was the first time I'd seen an in-person naked person in three years (...that would now be four years, if you don't count that one Stamptown routine).

Anyway, I've finished my curry, Mosque Kitchen is awesome, Ahir Shah has a direct line to all my emotions, I'm off to see a sacred site and also Phil Nichol's genitals.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So first of all, that building is ridiculous. There's so much more going on inside it than I'd imagined, even from the ornate exterior:

Yeah it looks like a castle, but Edinburgh is pretty much entirely made up of buildings that look like castles and then are ordinary on the inside. But this one has multiple spiral staircases!

There's a bar inside that has so much going on, decor wise:

I realized that I recognized some of the building, and it took me a little while to work out that that's because I've seen it in the Tim Minchin documentary. Which spent a lot of time covering Minchin's debut Edinburgh hour from 2005, where he was at the Gilded Balloon Teviot. So while I'm sure the building has changed since the CMG days, some must be similar, since it looked familiar from that.

I probably spent a weird amount of time just walking around the building last night, having a look at it. I don't think it would have helped if I could have explained that I'm basically just acting like those people who go to New Zealand to see all the locations where Lord of the Rings was filmed. I'm basically just coming to see the location where they filmed my favourite video, okay?

I'm supposed to attend Late 'n' Live at some point this month, not because I have any interest in that show, but because it'll let me see the actual room where Cowgate happened. Though I don't know if they do still host Late 'n' Live in the same room. Annoyingly, my trusty site for old Edinburgh programmes, such a useful way to look up Fringe history, has let me down here. Because the 2003 programme entry for Late 'n' Live doesn't tell me what specific room it was in:

I did see page 182, where it confirms that the Gilded Balloon Teviot circa 2003 had the same rooms it does now - Wine Bar (that's where I saw Phil Nichol last night), Debating Hall (that's where Late 'n' Live is now, and may or may not have been then), and a few others:

I'm going to guess Late 'n' Live was still in the Debating Hall back then, but I don't know for sure. As I walked around the venue last night, I thought that after all my time researching Cowgate-related stuff, I've crossed an ocean to find the site in person, surely I could just find out from someone here. But that would not make sense, as if I asked any of the Gilded Balloon employees around whether Late 'n' Live was held in the same room back in 2003, their answer would probably be "I wasn't even born in that year" (the venue employees at this festival are surprisingly young). I suppose I could just wander around the building and hope I eventually run into Karen Koren herself, and ask her.

In case anyone is reading this without context and has now idea what I'm talking about - look, I don't have time to explain all the lore, but CMG stands for Chocolate Milk Gang, a thing I spent several years obsessively researching, all direct references to it that I've found are collated here:

The Chocolate Milk Gang Preservation Society

Well, most direct references. That page doesn't include the fact that last year in London, I got to ask Steve Hall about it - the actual Steve Hall from We Are Klang and those awesome old Kitson radio shows and he's so fucking cool and getting to talk to him is the absolute coolest thing I did in all of 2025 - and he verbally confirmed to me that it was real. That "Chocolate Milk Gang" was a real term used by comedians at the time, and John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman are full of shit when they claim it wasn't (or more likely, they were too busy just getting on with their own lives and comedy careers to pay attention to what people called them).

Oh, and Cowgate is a name I've given to an event from 2003, featuring a number of CMG members (Cowgate is also a neighbourhood in Edinburgh, I named the event after the neighbourhood, which I suppose could be confusing, but I think it's a solid name because I also mean it in the sense of Watergate, but with a cow). Basically, a number of years ago I came across this video at 2 AM while unable to sleep due to a month-long bout of anxiety-based insomnia, and then I spent several years obsessed with learning all the secrets of why the fuck that happened:

I've learned many secrets about that video now, after much research. Flight of the Conchords were on stage in it, playing the music. The cow was a mascot to advertise Metro, which were sponsors of the Gilded Balloon at the time. Its name is Mootro. The destruction of it was basically because the comedians were annoyed that they had to share the stage with an advertisement. Fun fact, this took place on Nish Kumar's 18th birthday. That has nothing to do with anything but I think it's fun. I know so much stuff about this video and it took so long to find out. And now I've physically been there. Very exciting.

Anyway. When I was standing in line for the Phil Nichol show, people around me were all joking about how he was going to take his clothes off in it. This made me want to tell them, "You know, it was originally written as a protest show against the Iraq war. It's a bit reductive to think of this as just a show about getting naked; there's a purpose to that." Which of course is very silly, because I had just written a Tumblr post in which I entirely reduced that show to one where Phil Nichol gets naked. Also, it was a pro-pacifism show, but it was mainly a story about doing a lot of drugs and getting naked in public. In the name of pacifism.

The show was awesome. It was almost word-for-word what I remembered from the NextUp video that was filmed in 2006 (or maybe filmed in 2007, actually, but around that time, it captured the 2006 version of the show) - I mean, one important word was changed, for the better, but otherwise he brought it back faithfully. Watching the show live reminded me how much it affected me when I first saw it, the actual nudity being the least of that.

The part where he says that humans don't need war anymore because in modern times we can sublimate our violent instincts, and all the ways we've found to sublimate those are what makes life worth living, like sports and adventure. When I first saw this show, it was much sooner after I'd made the difficult decision to walk away from my ~20 years involved in competing and coaching in the sport of wrestling at a relatively high-level, and that part really got to me. That's what the show is about, really. Doing wild shit like drugs and loud music and streetfights to satisfy the violent instinct because we don't need war for that (is there a reason why so many people from my sport including me struggle with alcohol problems because we get addicted to the adrenaline and sublimation of human violent instinct into anything that'll mess us up for a bit, don't worry about that, but this show did bring that up for me in a cathartic way).

Anyway, at the end of the show he did take his clothes off, and it was weird and shocking at first but only for a few moments, then I got used to it and it was fine, and we all stood up and jumped up and down while singing an anti-war song, and it was a great time. I'm very glad I went. Seeing Phil Nichol again later in the month, doing a new WIP. It's just occurred to me that there is one person in that building who would know what room Late 'n' Live was in in 2003: Phil Nichol. I'm usually very bad at talking to famous comedians (and my definition of "famous comedian" is anyone who's been on stage) because I get extremely overwhelmed and intimidated and I'm so bad at being normal, but I've seen Phil Nichol naked for long enough so he can't be that intimidating. Maybe I'll try to ask him.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well, Ahir Shah just made me cry in a theatre. Jesus Christ he's done it again. And by "it", I specifically mean making me cry. He has a long history of that. But anyway, we have to just blow past that now so I can eat this Mosque Kitchen curry and go see Phil Nichol.

Phil Nichol is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, a building I have never been inside, because it was closed for the past two years. It's a big deal because this is the building where Cowgate took place, I can finally see the actual site! I expected that experience to feel emotional, though I didn't expect to do it while feeling quite so emotional about the specific topic of Ahir Shah's mental health journey.

Phil Nichol's show The Naked Racist is a great way to pay my respects to the sacred site of the seminal CMG event, because it's a fairly CMG show, despite Phil Nichol very much not being a CMG comedian. In fact, he's sort of the opposite. They were named the CMG for being the nerdy comedians, as opposed to the party comedians of that generation, such as Phil Nichol (Andrew Maxwell, Jason Byrne, Glenn Wool, there's an absolute dick named David McSavage who fancied himself their opposition - basically they were apparently getting bullied by the Irish and the Canadians). But that means Phil Nichol was of that generation (he's older, actually, but comedy generations), and part of the circumstances that created them.

The Naked Racist is a fantastic show that I've seen a video of before, it's currently being brought back because it's the 20th anniversary of when it won the Perrier Award, in 2006. I was very impressed when I watched this show on my laptop, I also thought, this would be fucking intense to see live, because I'm very sex-positive and pro-non-sexual nudity in a theoretical and political way; I'm squeamish/repressed as fuck about that sort of thing, in an actual practical way. And this show contains quite a lot of nudity. I did see someone get naked at Stamptown last year and realized it was the first time I'd seen an in-person naked person in three years (...that would now be four years, if you don't count that one Stamptown routine).

Anyway, I've finished my curry, Mosque Kitchen is awesome, Ahir Shah has a direct line to all my emotions, I'm off to see a sacred site and also Phil Nichol's genitals.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I've done a good job in my Fringe planning this year, don't have many tight connections. 30+ minutes between shows most times, and if a gap is shorter than that, it's usually because they're in the same venue, several times in the same room.

But I couldn't avoid a tight connection today - Elf Lyons at the Pleasance Courtyard ending at 22:30, then Luke McQueen at the Pleasance Dome, starting at 22:50. I mean, obviously I could have avoided that. It would have required missing Elf Lyons or Luke McQueen, or something else in their timeslot on a different day. But I didn't want to do that.

According to Google Maps, the walking time from the Pleasance Courtyard to Dome is 11 minutes. I actually had this same gap last year, when I nearly tackled Lou Sanders to the ground, while trying to get out of the Pleasance Courtyard fast enough. By which I mean, I saw Chloe Petts at the Pleasance Courtyard, and twenty minutes after their show ended was the start of that play that I wanted to see because it was directed by Natalie Palamides, and it was at the Dome. And as I tried to exit Chloe's venue as fast as possible, I was more pushy than I'd normally be with slow-moving audience members who were holding me back (I'm normally very polite with this, I swear). And Lou Sanders was one of those people who saw the show with me and was walking out too slowly.

I made it last time, with about 5 minutes to spare before the Natalie Palamides thing, would have been more minutes if Lou Sanders walked faster. But this time, I was more concerned because Elf Lyons was in a big room, which took ages to fill and consistently ran late. I lined up early so I could have my pick of seats, chose one right by the door so I could avoid fighting slow crowds on the way out. But then I had to watch the whole rest of the room fill, while thinking "God damn it everyone hurry the fuck up, this show needs to start on time so it'll end on time because I need to book it across the downtown to see Luke McQueen mime sucking a dick at the behest of an AI Stuart Goldsmith."

Elf's show started 9 minutes late, and ended 9 minutes late, leaving me with 11 minutes to Luke's start time. I booked it across several blocks, nearly got hit by a car trying to take a shortcut, made it to the Ace Dome lineup with three minutes to spare.

I was still out of breath when I took my seat before the Luke McQueen show, but in the couple of minutes before it started, I had the presence of mind to look around. Yesterday was a big day for that exciting thing where you share an audience with a famous comedian - Mike Wozniak in Will Adamsdale's show, Alice Fraser in Tom Neenan's show, Rose Matafeo in Amy Annette's. There wasn't any of that in the first six shows I saw today, but I figured Luke McQueen's show, literally titled Comedian's Comedian, is the sort of thing that other comedians want to see. When I saw this show last year (that's how I knew about the dick sucking mime before seeing it tonight), I shared a row with Phil Wang and his annoying buddy Alex Kealy (Alex Kealy is probably fine, but a different comedian once wrote the most boring show in stand-up history and it was largely about Alex Kealy, so now I unfairly dislike that guy).

Anyway. The point is that tonight, at 22:49, I'm sitting in the Ace Dome, trying to catch my breath after running a bunch of blocks, trying to organize my stuff, realize I got there too frazzled to even notice the rest of the crowd, there aren't many of them as the small room is barely half full (which is ridiculous, given how great this show is, great enough for me to feel the need to see it a second time, and it's only on for a few nights at this festival, I'd assumed it would sell out every one), there are maybe thirty people in the room, I'll just glance around to see if-

Oh shit fuck I wish I hadn't done that because I'm so bad at being normal and now I have to sit here for the whole show while very normally pretending I've not noticed Toms Cashman and Ballard sitting together, just behind me. So that was exciting.

Anyway, I saw 7 shows today and liked them all, loved a few, definitely including that last one, it was fucking brilliant, but I'll write about the actual shows tomorrow. Very tired now, on the bus back to my Air B&B, it 12:42 AM. Just wanted to write the personal and gossippy freaking out stuff tonight, before tomorrow I write my professional-style analysis of the actual comedy for an actual website. Because I'm doing that now, which is also fucking cool. Almost as cool as dying laughing at a dick sucking mime while hearing one of my favourite comedians, Tom Ballard, die laughing right behind me. And Cashman, I like him too and his presence added a fun frisson in the room when Luke did his joke about wanting to be on Taskmaster.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Further wild comedian spotting: I've just come into the Monkey Barrel Bar for the first time this year. That was my favourite place to just hang out last year, because there's almost always somewhere to sit, even when it's busy. It's in a cool stone basement but with reliable wifi. Easy to access water. Convenient because Monkey Barrel is the venue where I see thd most shows. And I just like decor in here.

Anyway, last year I swear that every time I came in here I saw Stuart Laws. I joked to myself today, as I came down the stairs, that I'm going to see Stuart Laws again, because he's always in this bar. But now I'm sitting in a corner of the Monkey Barrel bar, reminding myself not to stare at Stuart Laws, because he is actually in here. I think maybe he lives here.

Anyway, Eleanor Morton was good. Even more elaborately theatrical than her previous show, which I love. Covered some similar ground to Caitriona Dowden's show from last year, which I also love. There was a sparkly costume.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Edinburgh:

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

For the last two years, I've made posts on Tumblr every day while I was in Edinburgh, with some thoughts on the shows I saw the day before. It works well - see shows in the afternoon and evening and into the night, write a bit in the morning, repeat.

This year, I won't put them all on Tumblr because I'm going to do this for an actual website. Here's the post I made this morning, about yesterday:

It's a new site that my friend who lives in London just set up. It'll have contributions from him and from me and from three other London-based comedy fans, two of whom I've met in person, all of whom are cool. Everyone should follow this site - not just my posts, but the whole thing:

I'm a bit nervous to write for an actual website where I'm trying to be professional and relatively free of spelling errors and (significant) spoilers and things, instead of Tumblr where no one cares. But it's also cool and exciting and my friend is awesome for setting up a site that looks so good.

I'll still have lots to put on Tumblr, like unprofessional personal ramblings. Oh, and any show I dislike - we're not doing negative reviews on there, so if I hate something, I'll mention it exclusively on Tumblr!

A late-night Stuart Laws show was on my schedule yesterday is not on my post on that website, not because I hated it but because I skipped it. It was 23:00-00:00, and I got out of Lou Wall's show at 22:15, exhausted. Seeing shows all afternoon/evening and late into the night is doable when I've spent the morning relaxing at the Air B&B and waxing poetic about Amy Annette. Not so much when I had a day like yesterday - got up at 6:30 AM to get a flight from Shetland to Edinburgh. I didn't have the energy for a late-night show.

Also, after 10 PM on a Saturday night in August, downtown Edinburgh is not a fun place to be. I recall from last year that weekdays/nights weren't really less crowded than weekends, but weekends had shittier crowds, and they get worse at night. Louder and drunker crowds, people shouting and sometimes aggressive. I was happy to turn in early.

Also, that show was billed as Stuart Laws late-night messing around. I'm already seeing his Michael Caine show and his beer mat flipping show on other nights, so I probably didn't need this one too.

But now I'm refreshed from a proper sleep, set up in the Air B&B, showered, on the bus into town, ready to see more comedy! It's pouring rain, but that's fine! Edinburgh!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

The wild comedian spotting is starting early this year - I've seen two shows so far, the first was Will Adamsdale where I sat several seats away from Mike Wozniak in the audience, and then half an hour later I saw Tom Neenan in the same room, where I sat behind Alice Fraser. I'm pretty sure both shows were solidly good, though during Tom's I found it a bit hard to, in the least creepy way possible, focus on anything besides how exciting it was to sit behind Alice Fraser.

Off to see Amy Annette next, let's hope Nish Kumar isn't in because I can't handle any more of that.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Update: I'm in line for Amy Annette's show, Nish Kumar is not in this line but Rose Matafeo is. I'm 3 for 3 and I really need to get better at not openly staring at people.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

The wild comedian spotting is starting early this year - I've seen two shows so far, the first was Will Adamsdale where I sat several seats away from Mike Wozniak in the audience, and then half an hour later I saw Tom Neenan in the same room, where I sat behind Alice Fraser. I'm pretty sure both shows were solidly good, though during Tom's I found it a bit hard to, in the least creepy way possible, focus on anything besides how exciting it was to sit behind Alice Fraser.

Off to see Amy Annette next, let's hope Nish Kumar isn't in because I can't handle any more of that.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

EdFringe schedule

I've made a couple of very last-minute changes to my Edinburgh schedule, in the last few days. Added a show called Manwatching, a show with a rotating cast performing it that I'd read the description for weeks ago and thought looked bad. But then the other I learned that the person performing it on the 15th is David O'Doherty. I'd watch DO'D perform anything. I'd go see a show of Ricky Gervais' material, if DO'D were performing it. If DO'D ever started a right-wing podcast, I'd probably become a Tory. Wouldn't be able resist, after spending so much time listening to his propaganda.

Luckily DO'D is not performing a right-wing podcast, just a show with a gimmicky premise. So I moved JLR around and cut a couple of other shows to add that in on the 15th.

I also replaced Pierre Novellie straight-up with Frankie McNair, because I keep reading great things about her show. She's from Australia, and I'll have lots of chances to see Pierre Novellie in London, so this seems to make sense.

I'm interested to see how many shows on this schedule I'll actually manage to get to. Surely not all of them. But at least I won't have to get up early every morning, the way I did last year because Kitson was on at 10 AM and I'd decided to see him 5 times. That'll be easier, energy-wise.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

That flight from Shetland to Edinburgh, which I was terrified about because of the small plane and fog and high winds, was one of the easiest flights I've done. Bit of turbulence, but I was prepared for so much worse that I hardly noticed it. Much much less scary than the ferry.

And I'm in Edinburgh! Currently on a bus from the airport to my Air B&B to check in, then shows. It's now 11:20 and my first show is at 1:45.

I am so pleased because Shetland was incredible and it turns out there is a non-terrifying way to go back to it. But now, I go from the remote island with many sheep but little civilization, to what, based my experience of Edinburgh in August for the last two years, seems very much like the cultural and social centre of the universe.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I've been too busy and/or tired to write updates as I go in Shetland, but it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen so here are some pictures.

It reminds me a bit of New Zealand, and a bit of Newfoundland - fucking difficult to get to but if you manage it there are oceans and mountains and cliffs and incredibly gorgeous varied fauna. It's like NZ in that there are sheep walking around everywhere, though Shetland also seems heavy on cows and horses. It's like Newfoundland in terms of the friendly people and rural hospitality, and the accent reminds me a bit of the Newfie accent.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

The beach with two sides was as amazing as I hoped it would be. Yesterday I spent 2 hours walking around St Ninian's Isle, in the pouring rain and howling wind, which made it cool and dramatic and also meant there were no other people anywhere on it. It's this big expanse of grass and cliffs and some random stone structures and sheep and rabbits, connected to the Mainland by that double-sided beach. Top ten coolest things I've ever done. I did then have to kill three hours while drenched to the bone before I could check into my next hotel and warm up, and I used the hotel iron and hair dryer to dry my soaked clothes. Great day.

I listened to Runrig for most of it, which paired excellently. I cannot recommend highly enough climbing to the top of a cliff face in pouring rain, surrounded by ocean and sheep, while listening to Hearts of Olden Glory (through headphones, but signing along out loud because there's no one else on the isle). Fucking amazing. Everything I wanted out of Shetland. Also there was a pony.

I didn't even get murdered in my two days there, even though I've seen a documentary that suggests those are shockingly common, per capita, in Shetland. (I've actually only seen the first two episodes of that BBC Shetland show, but my parents are big fans so I've heard about it.)

Anyway, I made this a reblog instead of just more of the above most because that resets the mobile app's 10-image limit. Here are some more:

I'm now in the Sumburgh Airport, absolutely terrified because I'm soon getting on a plane to Edinburgh, and there is fog and high winds and it's a small propeller plane and this is going to be really bad. But Shetland is beautiful. Just fucking difficult to get to. Or from.