With so many shows on at the Fringe you take a bit of a punt of what you might like to see and hope it turns out for the best. Today we managed a 66.6% success rate I would say.
I paid for this!
Our first show, held in the back room of a pub, was called ”Aaaaaaaaaaargh! It’s the One Liner Show” which you would have thought would have been descriptive enough. There were eight comedians (and I use that word advisedly) and a compare. It got off to a good start with the first guy nailing both the concept of the one liner and that of the joke. However, it went down hill from there. Those that followed ranged from ok to pretty mediocre and many of them hadn’t got the memo about it being a one liner show.
The last act was particularly bad and when nobody was laughing he started getting aggressive and turned on the audience. I don’t know, if it was me and nobody was laughing I’d look at my material rather than turn on the paying punters but then that’s me.
It shows the quality (or lack thereof) of the jokes that the most memorable part and the one that got the biggest laugh was when one of the “comedians” asked the man and woman in the front row if they were a couple. Silence followed so he pressed for an answer and was eventually given one: “not yet”! Let’s hope that she feels as enthusiastic as he obviously does about the relationship.
Music is the Saviour
The next two shows were much more successful, particlarly as nobody turned on the crowd!
The first was The Carole King & James Taylor story presented by two musicians from a group called Night Owl Shows. We’ve seen them perform in our previous visits to Edinburgh and they have been very good. Turns out though that, unsurprisingly, you need to be of a certain age to make the most of this. Our son, who is in his 30s, knew few of the songs and so when you were encouraged to sing along he couldn’t. To be fair, I’m not sure he would have even if he knew all the King/Taylor songbook by heart!
The final show meant a walk down to the far end of Edinburgh to Holyrood where there is a science learning centre called Dynamic Earth. Here, underground, is also a planetarium which tonight was showing a film set to the music of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.
It was lovely to hear such a classic album on a superior sound system for a change and you really could hear the nuances of the music. The accompanying space themed video was also excellent even if it did make me feel a bit sea sick as I thought we were moving rather than the image.
Interesting day and nice to end on a high.