Edinburgh or bust part 1

So I am at the Edinburgh Fringe for a few days. Everyone asks if I am performing here, the answer to that is no, just checking out some shows. The place is rammed with performers though so the fact that my job is a close-up magician makes me seem relatively normal. Rather than driving up here we got the train which was a fairly painless experience apart from a couple of kids on the first leg of the journey who were clucking like chickens and whistling a bit. They weren’t ill or anything, just a bit annoying.

The first show we saw was, tragically, a magic show. I do have other interests, honest. It was a good show though - “Hokum” with Pete Firman. Firman has done a fair bit of television in this country, mainly Monkey Magic, Secret World of Magic and Dirty Tricks. It’s a very good show that nods hugely to old-skool magic acts of the Seventies and Eighties with equal measures of derision and affection. He has a very likeable style and a good variety of material (including the apparent blending of a live mouse!) and the hour went by quite quickly. The audience that were in the same show that I was loved it.
Later on we also saw a show called “Old Rope” where the premise was that of some established comedians trying out some new material. It was good in parts and shockingly terrible in others. Highlights were the guy from the Trachtenburg Slideshow Players mumbling his way through about 10 minutes of I’m not quite sure what and Reginald D. Hunter who I have always liked a lot. One of the acts called a fairly tough-looking audience member the rudest word possible in the first 20 seconds of his act which made the rest of his time on stage really tense and awkward. For some reason I quite enjoyed that… car crash comedy. Later that night saw Daniel Kitson over at the Spiegel Garden. It was a story show rather than stand-up with his friend on the guitar playing intermittently. It was good but as it finished just before 3am found myself drifting off a bit.

More later.