Edinburgh Festival

[tm4tj]

Well,

Have you been to see any shows at the Fringe Festival yet. I saw a few last weekend and one you don't want to miss is Ivan Brackenbury's hospital Christmas radio show

Very very funny

Took in another show while we were waiting.............well we got freebies for it, and it was well acted and it's amazing what you can do with a few filing cabinets and a desk. Hilarious surreal dream and some great character acting by the three members of the cast.You don't need to know that

If you believe in justice, watch this one.

Both these shows at the Pleasance Courtyard.

One to miss:- We watched The best of Edinburgh Comedy Showcase 2008................The compere, Andrew Stanley, was excellent, and looks like a name for the future, but woe is me, one of the comedians, if you could call him that was very very unfunny, Dermot McMorrow is his name and he is doing his own show at the Gilded Balloon, Dermot McMorrow: 13 Black Cats in the shape of a Magpie, think I'll give this one a miss. He looked nervous and appeared to be struggling for his next lines during the Comedy Showcase, we all thought he was going to die on the stage and everyone felt embarrassed for him.

[CaleyD]

The Fringe is one of the things I miss most about Edinburgh.

I had a drink with Johnny Vegas there a few years back in one of those make shift pubs they throw up in every nook and cranny (a claim to fame).

I used to spend more time wandering around watching the street performers and the guys in the parks than I did the shows...and at least if they were chit you didn't have to pay for the privilege of watching them up front - Some of the bands you get on the stage in Princess Street Gardens were pretty chit hot too and I often wonder what happened to some of them.

[Guest couchpotato]

Was gonna go to the fringe ,but i heard most of the acts just dont cut it

[RichieKass]

Never at any other time do i find myself loving and hating Edinburgh so much as when the festival comes to town. So much to do but most of it costs money and the city is just so busy all the town and you can't go anywhere without getting flyered, this year I've been to quite a few shows, last night I went to see some stand up comedy as part of the free fringe at the canongait bar - it was excellent, Robin Ince is doing some stuff for the free fringe on the 20th so i'm going to catch that.

I went to Udderbelly a few nights ago for pints and we took in a show we just picked at random and went for a show called Tina C - a spoof about a woman standing as an independent candidate in the presidential elections in the US. It was the biggest pile of p1sh i have ever seen, but that's what you get for picking at random after a few pints.

Been to a lot of gigs as part of the Jazz festival, went to see Tommy Smith, Haftor Medboe Group, Laura MacDonald and David Berkman all of who were excellent and I played a gig at the three sisters on the friday of the Jazz festival as well which was nice.

[+Feb82000]

was planing going to Fringe Festival on friday but plans change when mercat tours phoned me to say edinburgh

vaults vigil was off had a lot of water due to the rain there,will be at Fringe Festival next friday

will have prop pke meter as seen in ghostbusters on show at Fringe Festival

feb82000

[broomie boy]

was up town yesterday watching the street performers, some pretty good acts , but some were just glorified buskers

[The Mantis]

was up town yesterday watching the street performers, some pretty good acts , but some were just glorified buskers

Aye, took advantage of the rain being off for a day, went in and took a few photies....

[Pele_Is_God]

Saw Jerry sadowitz and Jeff Green so far. Both were very good! Broomie boy where in Edinburgh are you from?

[BornCaley]

I did Russel Kane last weekend, very good...my annual August 2 weeks off starts next Fri...so gonna do some shows then...after coming home from Caley v Hamilton that is

[clacher_holiday2]

Nowt yet but then I've not been in town, always try to take in a few movies over the month.

It can be a bit too busy for me, too many window shoppers at some of these outdoor events, no time for them at all, half the performers look like right pikey buskers.

I'm a total cynic with stand up and the amateur theater groups who pop up all over the place, a girl I used to go out with once danced in the style of a dreamy ghost for one, everybody involved in the production (use that term loosely) were right patronising ********, similar attitude spotted elsewhere in the city.

A group of street dancers in Bristol last year were out busking in the grassmarket last year, playing up the old och aye the noo's and ginger jimmy hats, an American pal of mine at the time was laughing that I mustve been the only Scottish person within about 100 yards. That was until I pointed out there were 3 homeless people begging along the outside of the pubs watching the whole display go by, the arrogance of the dancers and I have to say the tourists was sickening, they just kept blindly stepping over the homeless and shuffling them out the way, throwing ?5's ?10's etc at the dancers takign the **** out of the Scottish people. If they had turned round and dropped 50p the other direction then theyd get a hello and a thank you from a real life jocko whos managed to fall by the wayside in a city that for one month a year gorges itself on decadence and self righteous arseholes who pat each other on the back for just being there.

I do enjoy the festival and its great for Scoitland and the City but I wish people would have more respect for the place, Edinburgh itself isnt a museum or a theme park no matter how many visitors wish it was.

Edited August 10, 2008 by clacher_holiday2

[The Mantis]

Obviously agree with a lot of that Clacher. It's obvious when you go down the High Street and hear all the folk handing out the flyers - they're all from the South of England and very middle class.

Nothing wrong with that in itself, but you can't escape the feeling, not just in Edinburgh, but in Scotland as a whole, that it's like two parallel universes. The people for whom Scotland is some sort of mystical fairyland where they can come with all their chums in the summer, and the real picture that the rest of us have, a place where people are born, give birth, fight, drink, live, work, fornicate, go to the football and the pub and the funerals, and eventually kick the bucket

[BinghamLegend]

again same as clacher :thumb04: but what an absolute rage i get into when you are going to work and some german walks with his two daughters, two sons and wife right in front of you. Hazards of working in a large hotel on the royal mile i suppose. We have all been there, but imagine it in edinburgh at festival time.

Other than that i'm not a festival goer and don't have anytime for it in my schedule tbh. Call me mr grumps.

[RiG]

I went to see lostprophets as part of the Edge Festival which apparently comes under the Fringe umbrella. Edinburgh appeared to have flooded in the hours we had left Aberdeen. I had always wanted to drive through a river.

[clacher_holiday2]

Obviously agree with a lot of that Clacher. It's obvious when you go down the High Street and hear all the folk handing out the flyers - they're all from the South of England and very middle class.

Nothing wrong with that in itself, but you can't escape the feeling, not just in Edinburgh, but in Scotland as a whole, that it's like two parallel universes. The people for whom Scotland is some sort of mystical fairyland where they can come with all their chums in the summer, and the real picture that the rest of us have, a place where people are born, give birth, fight, drink, live, work, fornicate, go to the football and the pub and the funerals, and eventually kick the bucket

Well said. Cant add anything to that, they really do view this place as some kind of mystical fairyland.

I always sound quite bitter when talking about the festival and the background of the middle classes (from everywhere, not just the South East) in attendance but I really try not to be, their background really shouldnt be an issue whatsoever, Edinburgh has always attracted its fair share of folks form the South East who are willing to spend some cash for a better quality of life.

I do know that once upon a time, and even in my memory at the age of 25, that the festival took on a totally different picture in the years before cheap flights, the internet and channel 4's late 90's obsession with 'breaking' new stand ups. You can read about festivals of the past that were genuinely interesting from as little as 10 years ago, with the lower end of the market being dominated by those with radical political agendas or young artists and of course the higher end theatrical, operatic shows, the military tatoo etc which I suppose are still on the go. The place never used to be as affordable as it is now or as accommodating in events for window shoppers, again not a wholly terrible move by the organisers as I'm sure theres thousands of natives profiting from it all. In the past you wouldve only ever found people here who had a reason to attend, beyond merely wanting something to stick up on their bebo page before Uni kicks off.

The place is like f##king Disneyland just now, since the organisers have started getting erections over attendance numbers and spots on TV, the whole energy around the place has vanished.

The festival is dead beyond being just another tourist attraction for those who wish to pretend to be intellectuals or the kids of middle England who are unrepentantly just out for a summer jolly, the truth is theyve all been taken for mugs but who am I to say anything if theyre willing to pay the price and I'm not.

Maybe I'm just bitter because I was asked to pay ?5 to get into my old local tonight for f##k all more than normal, or the annoying fact that the place was packed wall to wall with people willing to pay in before me, making me queue for 10 minutes to get served!

And afterall I shouldnt forget that I'm just as much of an outsider as anybody else who is here for the month, maybe theres more in my upbringing that gives me something in common with those in the poor part of town the festival ignores, but I really am not the person to be sitting here moaning about any of this as its not my town thats chosen to go down this path.