Ed Fringe Pt 2 - A Chap Hop Education

I did say there'd be another Edinburgh post so here it is! A couple of months ago, during a bit of a mammoth Youtube session, our friends Sarah and Steve introduced us to Chap Hop artiste extraordinaire, Mr B, The Gentleman Rhymer, via his track Chap-Hop History.  In a lovely bit of serendipity, I was browsing the cabaret section of the Ed Fringe website to see if Lilli La Scala had a show on this year (no she didn't - boo!) and noticed Mr B was doing a 3 night run, marking a decade of Chap Hop. I duly messaged Sarah, and a plan was soon afoot for a Thursday evening in Edinburgh. On a school night. I'm not daft though - I booked Friday off work.
So after tea on Thursday we headed through to Edinburgh. The show didn't start till 10.30 so we headed to the Guilford Arms for a couple of pre show drinks.

We managed to grab a slightly odd sunken area - taking snug to a whole new level. Yes, that is my legs reflected in the mirror in case you wondered...
That's not a huge can of beer - just a slightly ridiculous half pint pot. As you can see, it was a dark beer kind of night, just for a change (!). Chew Chew by Fallen Brewing is a sweet, salty dessert of a beer - delicious. I followed that with an Orinoco Breakfast Stout, in the hope that all the coffee in it would keep me awake for the duration!
From there we headed around the corner to the Voodoo Rooms, which is part of the old Cafe Royale. Actually, the rest of the building still is the Cafe Royale, so that was a blast from the past.  The first couple of times I went to the Fringe we went to the Big Value Comedy Show in there, so it was odd walking through the redecorated bar to get to the ladies loos, which I can report are unchanged in the 10 plus years since we were last there!

The black and gold decor is an interesting look. We had time to buy a drink before heading into the ballroom - I decided to be a creature of habit and went for another Orinoco.
We were welcomed to the ballroom by Mr B's impeccably presented butler, Carshalton and made our way to the front row.  The rest of the audience must have been to one too many Fringe shows where that would be an ill advised choice as nobody else wanted the front row!
Despite suffering from a bout of 'Fringe flu' Mr B proceeded to delight the audience with a selection of new and old material. I say that - I have no idea how the rest of the audience were taking it as we were too busy enjoying the show ourselves to ever turn around and check. I even got to dust off my favourite (only) Chas and Dave fact - don't ask.....
An hour isn't long to cover a decade of music, so I was glad he included 'Songs for Acid Edward', not that I was ever a raver. I'm a bit too young for that, so it's more a trip down memory lane to the school disco than a ragga tip. Not sure David was impressed by my sweet dance moves, but he's learned to expect it 😊😁
Some pretty good stuff from the current album There's a rumpus going on too. (That link will only work if you're a bandcamp user by the way)
 Thanks to Sarah for this photo - as you can see, we pretty much had the best seats in the house!







The lucky chap got to have his photo taken with two lovely ladies after the show 😎

Backlit by the gents loos - lovely!  As an aside, if you don't think you've heard Mr B, and you're a similar age to me, you almost certainly will have done, in his previous guise as 'that bloke from Collapsed Lung, who did that Eat My Goal song'. Who'd have thunk it?

It was actually a nice sunny day today, without any rain forecast, so I decided to get the bike out and head up to Monikie, and then on to East Scryne farm for a cuppa and cake. I've stopped there a couple of times for icecream, made with their own berries, and very good it is too. I must have looked hungry as the slice of cake I got would have done two people - shiny new helmet included for perspective!

 

I knew the kiltwalk was on today, and the route started in St Andrews and finished in Monifieth, but I'd slightly misjudged how long it would take people to complete, so I found myself passing walkers all the way from Monifieth to Grassy Beach. Still, my bike bell is the jolliest bike bell ever so I gave an encouraging ting every so often. I had to stop shouting 'You're nearly there' after a while though, as it would probably have sounded more sarcastic than it was meant! 

Fringe 2017

We spent this weekend in Edinburgh for our almost annual visit to the Festival Fringe, hence the late post. You can never tell what the weather's going to do in Edinburgh in August - this probably sums it up...

Actually, we only caught a couple of showers over the weekend so didn't do too badly! We're very lucky to have a long suffering friend, Gordon, who puts us up for the weekend, saving us the fortune it would cost to stay in a hotel in Edinburgh during festival season. We headed down on Friday evening, and after dinner at Gordon's we got the bus into town. We got to the Pleasance Courtyard early enough to fit in a couple of drinks (a Sharps Orchard cider, and Stuart Brewing Edinburgh Festival for me) before our first show - Terry Alderton. I'd heard the name but more as a tv  presenter/actor than stand up. The show was aptly called 'All Crazy Now' and started with Terry and his sidekick Johnny Spurling arriving onstage as slightly dodgy rock band The Johns, complete with kilt, Bon Jovi vest and fright wig. Arguably things only got weirder from there! Funny, but don't think I'd feel the need to see him again.
Our first show on Saturday was 12 noon, so after a round of bacon rolls c/o Gordon we headed back into town. No pre show beers at that time of day for us - instead we popped into the square for a coffee, just round the corner from The Stand Comedy club for Tony Law's show, Absurdity for the Common People. I loved these light fittings in the cafe, and the cappuccino was pretty good too!

I'd seen snippets of Tony Law, on Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle, but even that didn't prepare me for a full hour of his bizarre, but funny flights of fancy. I think we all left wondering what had just happened...

A friend from work had told me one of his mates had a free show on over at espionage on Victoria Street, so with half an hour till the show was due to start we decided to chance the 20 minute walk. If I'm honest my main reason for wanting to go to this show is that back in my uni days Espionage night club was the Mission rock club and I was curious to see what they'd done with the old place! It looks a bit smarter than it was back in the day, but the old archways are intact thank goodness! The Show was called Afternoon Tea with Ray Fordyce and Other thoroughly pleasant people and billed as an afternoon of entertainment and comedy Featuring 3 or more acts each day. This type of show can be a bit hit and miss, and I think this was about 50/50.

From there we headed up to the BBC area at George Heriot's School.

They mostly have children's shows on during the day, so after a non alcoholic cocktail at the Secret Garden bar (Fentimans ginger beer with fresh raspberries- lovely!) we made our escape!

We wandered over to Summerhall to see if they had any tickets for Mark Thomas but they only had one left. After a bit more wandering we decided to get an early tea. We walk past the Mosque Kitchen every year at the Fringe but we've never been in there so thought we'd give it a try. Proper home made curry at a decent price means I'll let them off the not exactly 'green' polystyrene bowls...

Lamb curry, cauliflower and rice, plus drink - £7!

As we still had loads of time left before the next show we headed to the Pleasance ticket office and asked for 3 tickets for whatever they had starting in the next half hour or so. This can be a risky strategy, but the gamble paid off! Kwame Adeste is a junior doctor taking a year off to decide whether he wants to be a stand up or a doctor, and his set was slightly predictably filled with tales of working in the NHS. It was an enjoyable show, so it'll be interesting to see what he decides to do at the end of the year. We didn't really want to hang around the Pleasance again so we headed down to the bottom of the Royal Mile and found a quiet pub for a pint - when in Edinburgh, drink an Edinburgh Castle...

Next up was Tom Allen back at the Pleasance. As we arrived at the Pleasance Courtyard one of the buildings was being evacuated as the fire alarm was going off. Luckily, we arrived just before they decided to evacuate the coartyard too, so we were able to get through to Pleasance Beyond without any problems - unlike about half the audience.  Tom Allen likes to greet his audience on the way in, which is lovely, but he may have regretted it on this occasion as it took a good half hour to get everyone in. He took the whole thing in his stride though and put on a great show. 

On Sunday morning it was back to the Stand, for a recording of Sarah Millican's Standard Issue 'In Conversation' podcast, a very funny panel discussion with Val McDermid, Urzila Carson and Hannah Gadsby. As an aside, this was the second of three times we saw Simon Munnery wandering around Edinburgh - might have to go and see his show next year if he's on! The Stand sensibly doesn't allow photos during shows, so I took this before it started...

I should say, before the show we did tick off another Edinburgh 'must do' - coffee and a pastry at Valvona and Crolla. Clive Anderson walked in whilst we were there, which is one of things that just sort of happens when you're in Edinburgh in August!

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, then had tea at Wahaca. We had the Mexican banquet, a fab selection of tacos, empanadas, erm etc! Dessert was included, so I had the churros - any excuse!

From there, we met up with Gordon and wandered down Broughton Street for a quick drink in the Cask and Barrel before the last show of the weekend, Alun Cochrane at the Stand 4. Another great show, in a slightly odd venue - the function room of a hotel as far as I could tell!
So a busy weekend, and a successful one too, as far as picking good shows goes. That's not quite it for the Fringe 2017, as went to another show last night, but I'll save that for the next post!

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Four seasons in one day

or to put it another way, summer in Scotland!
David was away on the coast to coast last weekend, meaning we didn't go out for a birthday meal on his birthday, so instead I took him out for lunch at the Newport today. As it was quite a nice morning we decided to walk across the bridge - something neither of us had actually done before! We got there in plenty of time so had a bit of a wander first. We walked back across the bridge after lunch but by then the weather had turned grim.
I did get some okay photos before the weather turned, and of course had to take pictures of lunch.....