Edinburgh Fringe is back, baby!

A was a bit let down I think compared to previous years! Or maybe it was just a lack of free Pop Chips that spoiled the mood …

Highlight for her was Cirque Berserk

Was just at the opening of the international festival - cool Australian Scottish circus troupe with folky-choral-minimalist musical backing

Some very impressive acrobatics, amazing music all the way through, a bit of a lull in the middle when it went more dance-y but still, great spectacle

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Gah, I love the fringe. Seen a few decent things but best by far was James Ley’s Wilf at the Traverse. Deffo recommend.

a, classic fringe experience there - read about something that sounds interesting, get keen to see it, find out the whole month is sold out

ah well

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Oh no! What’s that?

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I saw the name of that and obvs thought of this forum :grin:

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Up again this year. Last year was a bit weird, with it being a bit “what is there to see now” rather than “which of these hundreds of things should we see?”
Got tickets booked for one of the charity showcase gigs, but other than that the GF prefers seeing what has cheap tickets going during the day.

One down side is that ACMS is back to a midnight start, and I’m not sure I enjoy it that much.

Plus Arab Strap are playing the night of the day we leave.

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Stay a day longer

(Lucy Dacus playing the night before also)

Pretty much just advertisement for his shows, this. Bet this Mike guy is a mate of his and they made it up for that purpose too.

Fuck him.

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17 shows down, 10 to go. All sandwiched into four days because accommodation is so expensive. I’ve seen storyteller comedians, I’ve seen Stewart Lee and Frankie Boyle… but nothing is going to match the sheer joy of the hour I spent in Tim Vine’s company tonight.

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There’s some good efforts in this thread… i’m only going through for the day today from Glasgow, avoiding those pesky accommodation fees. Got Tony Law at 12, and finishing with Rosco McCelland at 9 tonight. Might queue for Danial Kitson as they’re releasing a handful of tickets on the door. In between it’ll pints and free shows I reckon.

Is he there??? I didn’t think he was, he’s not mentioned it on his mailing list.

I can categorically say that he ISN’T here this year. I went to the Stand box office in good time to queue for tickets at they said i wasnt the first person to ask about Kitson. I must’ve pulled up an old website and got excited before checking the year :disappointed_relieved:

Tony Law was brilliant as usual, Soozie Kempner (free fringe) was okay, Pierre Novellie was really good (last minute booking when i realised no Kitson) and Rosco McCelland was great. Think i need more variation next time; maybe some sketch show stuff, theatre, more absurdist…

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Oh man, that’s unfortunate! Sorry to hear that.

Sounds like you had a decent day otherwise :smiley:

Random q about this - a friend recommended it as I was looking for a late night thing, but I see it goes on until 3am or something, which I’m probably not down with tbh. Do they tend to have breaks where I could slope off when I’ve had enough / need my bed?

The whole set up is just a load of comedians doing 5 mins of stuff they’re supposed to have made up that day, so there’s plenty of chance to just make a dart in between acts. They do do the odd break too if I remember. There’s people getting up and going for drinks etc. All the time.

It can be very, very self reverential, and some of it falls very flat but you get some genius stuff. Last year Mark Watson did 10 minutes where he did stuff on comedians doing embarrassing things at Edinburgh, how self absorbed ACMS is and his attempt to be an American style comic abusing audience members (understandably very limply).

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Thought Burn was pretty strong, an hour of Alan Cumming doing a woozy and physical one man interpretation of Robert Burns life. Impressive staging and a thrilling score by Anna Meredith, at one point it sounded like someone was playing Scotland the Brave in a club whilst their bagpipe melted.

Interesting looking documentary on BBC2 tonight about the history of the Fringe.

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2022/32/the-fringe-fame-and-me

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Half Price Hut is back, actually, definitely always the plan