More Edinburgh blogs. Again, I’m doing it exactly a week later, I promise it’s just coincidence, I’m not nearly organised to do this deliberately.
Saturday started again with a 3 hour drive to Edinburgh, but eventually we arrived at the Travelodge to be told that check-in wasn’t for another 40 minutes so we all walked up to High Street (our hotel was right between the Pleasance and High Street, it was great) with our bags to get some lunch and collect the tickets that we had to collect at the box office. Me and Abi started to queue up to get Chris Cox tickets as Mum had agreed to go see him since he “was a cheeky so and so” and had joined in trying to persuade her on twitter, but (luckily) I was looking through the programme and realised he was at the Pleasance Dome instead of the courtyard and we wouldn’t have time to get there so we escaped from the queue. We did meet Marc Hogan in the queue though who seemed very nice and I was a bit disappointed we couldn’t go and see his show either.
Anyway, we eventually got back to the hotel and checked in and decided to fill up some time and go and see our first Free Fringe show, Some Comedy (In A Cave) in the Rowan Caves. The venue is pretty much the opposite of every other fringe venue since it’s pretty much pitch black (except the stage of course), wet and cold. I can’t actually remember the names of everyone that was on (I’m trying to find out though) but Gareth Morinan hosted it who was ok, then Eric Lampaert came on who I was a bit wary of at first and wasn’t sure I’d like but he turned out to be completely insane and was the best out of the whole show. Then there was Simon Lilley who was alright but I wouldn’t go and see again, and then Fred Forse, who’s entire act was based on an old porn magazine he’d stolen off his dad which wasn’t funny and probably a little bit too risqué for an afternoon show. But it was free anyway and at least there was one good comic there.
After that we went for a little wander, Abi bought some new boots, I tried on a dress which looked really nice on the hanger and awful on me and then headed to the Pleasance for Pappy’s Fun Club who were just amazing. The opening song about how they didn’t have time to do an opening song was genius and it got better from there, from Dean the Dinosaur to the world’s tallest man and shortest woman falling in love. And of course the entire audience being turned into Quakers.
There was a quick walk back up to the High Street to find some food (Pizza Paradise just off the High Street does make very nice pizza, although it’s not the nicest looking restaurant) before going back to the Pleasance to see Matt Kirshen. The show started fairly regularly, including an amazing story about a rap battle that me and Abi are still quoting to each other, but as the room got steadily hotter the audience started getting quite odd. About 5 people left for the toilet at the same time and one nearly groped a woman in the front row by accident. The only experience I’d had of Matt Kirshen’s comedy up till then was at Twitcom when he hadn’t actually finished his story since he was texting it in so I was pleasantly surprised to find he was one of the best shows I saw. At the beginning of the show he’d spoken about how the British actually like things to go wrong, and how we’d have laughed much more at him falling on his face when he’d walked out than we would at any joke he told, so he ended the show by falling over on his way off stage since we’d been such a lovely crowd, although slightly odd. And then the song playing as we left was based on the rap battle.
Part 3 will come soon. 
