If I can give you one piece of advice for the festival this year, it’s double check your tickets in plenty time. Unless you want to end up like myself on Monday night which consisted of mass panic and trekking the length and breadth of the city like a woman on a mission. It was supposed to be simple. I had booked two sets of tickets for the evening for two different stand up shows. Unfortunately at the time of booking I made my first ridiculous slip up and booked the wrong night for one of them. Ingenuity then kicked in and, due to the mental returns policy in the fringe office, I sold the wrong tickets to my work colleague at a discounted rate.
Simples? Well, not so much. With about twenty minutes to go before we left to see Josie Long I realised I had given my colleague the wrong tickets for my second show, Brendan Burns. This meant after the first show I would have to sprint from the Caves to London Road and then back up to Bristo Square in time. Cue countless apologising to my boyfriend for my temporary retardedness and making him walk as if he was Usain Bolt running for a bus because, after the realisation of my mistake, it obviously took us longer to leave the house due to excess planning.
We made it to Josie Long just in time to join the queue. Although I had only seen her on “You Have Been Watching” (due to my love for Charlie Brooker) I was quite looking forward to it. The show was witty and described her indecision of who to choose as an adopted dad, Billy Bragg, Aneurin Bevan or the man who photographs his breakfast. What a dilemma! Any low points in the show could be forgiven because she just seemed so nice, the kind of person you could go for a pint with and have a pretty decent chat. What was so good was that she didn’t focus solely on being a female comedian which is one of my pet peeves. Yes good for you you’re female and funny get over it. This show made some gender references but her unique approach made it slightly more refreshing. So really she’s orange juice to the usual female stand-up’s prune.
So after this we hot-footed it to London Road, apologised to my work-colleague for my idiocy and jumped in a taxi back to the Udderbelly, just in time for a drink and joining the queue. Phew. If we had been late I don’t think I would have ever lived it down. Brendan Burns was…OK. I mean he wasn’t bad but he wasn’t what I expected from him. I heard he was brutal to the audience and was on the cutting edge of comedy. This show just seemed a bit nostalgic and preachy towards the end. It didn’t help that some arsehole sitting behind me had a laugh like a canon going off. A few moments cracked us up but perhaps the story about his girlfriend/fiance was just too gushy for what we were after from a fringe style giggle.
So the moral of the story today kids is check you’re tickets. Secondly, gage the audience you are sitting in front of, they might be idiots. And Thirdly, some comedians get worse as they get older and some don’t have to be funny to be enjoyable but it’s best to know what you’re letting yourself in for.
My next mission is more musicals and funny joy… until then I’ll try and get my organisational skills up to scratch!