Take heart, brothers. It draws to a close.

So! As promised, an update! It's a big one, I warn you...

First up on the big list of stuff to see was Rhod Gilbert, and for those of you who aren't familiar, he's a rather funny ranting Welshman who's made a swathe of succesful Fringe shows over the last few years, as well as being a radio DJ and a frequent participant in the many panel shows that grace the UK's screens. So, y'know, expectations were high, given that this was an extra show thrown on due to high demand, and that every single one his shows sold every single one of their tickets.


His show was absolute magic, with him not losing my attention for a single moment. From rants about some of the more mental of his fans, to the inception of his show, it's all seamless integrated with banter with the audience and some inventive mimes. He practically bounds from one side of the stage to the other, and only ever breaks pace once when the fighter jets for the Tatoo fly overhead. A superlative comedy performance indeed.

Next up was an extra show of The Mark Watson Edit which, on the surface at least, claims to be an amalgamation of the best parts of his previous three fringe shows. This too was an additional show to those previously scheduled, and though the ticket was £14, it was well worth it. Completely against what was advertised, Watson instead decides to just talk for an hour, engaging with the audience to such a such a degree that we're able to stage a practical joke on one of our fellow viewers - a girl named Banana, of all things - whereby he pretends to tell a climatic story ending with 'but at the end of the day, it turned out the kangoroo wasn't really there!'. It's marred somewhat by a man in the audience passing out, but he didn't break a sweat, doing his very best to keep the audience calm as there're worries of heart attacks being thrown around. A good show with a slightly disappointing ending - you can do worse.


Had to cool off for a few days after that - Mark Watson was on Tuesday, and we didn't go see anything until the Saturday the 29th. That was Brendon Burns, and by god did he kill. A regularly scheduled show called 'Comedy Good Yeah Silly Side Cunt' was certainly one of the highlights of the festival, with him musing on everything from racism to the nature of advertising. Of course, it was in his own foul-mouthed, earthy manner, but each to their own. A highlight was his note on racist chavs who complain that immigrants are taking all their jobs. His retort? 'If there are jobs that I'm stealing off you, you need to raise your game, you fucking spastic'. Genius.

Russell Kane was on Sunday, and by Steve, he was hilarious. An absolute riot, his comedy a combination of high-brow observation and low-brow delivery. He's tackling big issues - his major theme this year is the 'dressages' that we put ourselves through out of habit, from the ritual of greeting eachother to the methods of Essex girls pulling in clubs, it's all covered here, and I can genuinely see why he's so competitive for the if.comedy award - the man is fiercely intelligent, and yet is over-looked every year despite sell-out shows and rave reviews.



On Monday, I went to see Bec Hill in If You Read This My Cape Fell Off. Bec's a relatively good festival friend of mine, and I kinda really only went along because I did feel obliged to see it since she was a friend! But I was geniunely surprised at just how good it was. She's brilliant on-stage, infusing everything with a boundless, optimistic energy that is almost immediately infectious. Her show revolves around wanting to be a super-hero even though we're meant to have grown out of it. She gives us a few basic steps, and expends around each one with a relevant and usually hilarious story that fills out the background to her decided what the step was. Type her name into YouTube to get a vibe of her humour - it's geniuenly brilliant.

Then, yesterday, there was my last day at the Fringe. This involved finishing work at 5pm and then heading over to Gilded Balloon to go see Sirqus Alfons' Eurotrash, which was absolutely mental. Google it, seriously. It's a mind-fuck of physical comedy, musical comedy and multimedia performance, and is more or less critic-proof. After that, a 'mind-reader' called Phillip Escoffey, which was interesting, but once we had dissected it together, we had all more or less figured out that all of it was staged.

The final flourish, though, was the Last Late 'n' Live. That was absolutely magic - despite the fact that Tom Stade got boo-ed off the stage, Adam Hills, Axis of Awesome and Sirqus Alfons. A brilliant end to a relatively sedate festival for me - last year I was out and about all day getting very little sleep and drinking perhaps a smidge too much. This year, a grand total of 3 nights out were had, two of which sucked ass royally. But anyways, I can hardly complain - got to see some excellent comedy over the course of the month, and got a few funky little videos out of it. I do apologise for not doing a fourth and final 'Walk Down the Mile', but the place was just so crowded that it just became a mass of backs and noise.

Will do an update of non-festival related stuff later - depends on whether I actually get Batman: Arkham Asylum or not. We shall see!

Until then, adieu!

This is another suprise song...

Nice little surprise tonight. I have analytics - that's right, I'm watching you, tracking your every move...on...y'know...my site - and a beautiful thing happened. Someone, somewhere Googled ' "Adam Hills" "irn bru" "scott" "2009" ' and my site is the second from top result! Absolutely gorgeous moment, in my honest opinion, and whoever it was...how awesome was that opening?!?!?

Anyways, seen a whole spate of comedy in the last 36 hours...

First up was One Man Show-Off, a low-key sketch show performed by one guy called Dave. Not the best thing I've ever seen, but hardly the worst. He did two wonderful sketches - the first was him playing an Arabic tour-guide, and it was such a spot-on parody that I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Unfortunately, it seemed I was the only one in the room who had lived in Egypt, and thus I was laughing by myself. Not so good. The other seemed to tickle everyone else, with the man brilliantly miming being a jock at a club who gets dissappointed when a slow song comes on. Trying in vain to get his mates all worked up again, he eventually succumbs to the music and finally gets the courage to ask a girl to dance. This just so happens to be a girl rather daintily sat in the seat in front of me. Plant or no, it was a brilliantly pitched sketch and overall I was pretty impressed.

Not so impressed with the second act - Tiffany Stevenson. Same deal with Janeane Garofalo here - she'd be an interesting person to talk to, but she just didn't have an hour of stand-up in her, with the material exactly resembling a 10-minute idea stretched out to sixty minutes. She also had the gall to start slagging off members of the audience - and considering that our numbers were already slight thanks to terrible reviews from three different sources, that wasn't exactly the best way to win us over. Particularly when it wasn't funny. Oh well, you see some great stuff...you see some shit.


The final free show of the day - ah, to have mates who work at a venue! - was Phil Kay's Oh! Edinburgh! (or should I say Oh! Enbra!), and it was fantastic. For those of you who aren't familiar with The Madness of Phil Kay, he's essentially a train-of-thought comedian in the most literal sense possible. His comedy literally comes straight out of his head on the night - he's this mad old hippy who lives in tents in Edinburgh and he's got about a thousand stories about different things that have happened to him at varies times in his bonkers life. He's also got a serious story-telling gift, infusing even the most mundane stories with bouncing energy as he flies from one side of the stage to the other. The highlight being the tale of how he and 12 others stormed Edinburgh Castle butt-naked. Yes. You heard me.

About here my luck ran out, and I had to pay to go see Axis of Awesome. Just as good as last year, with some new songs and some old favourites. They even replaced their 'learning songs' with 'surprise songs', to the tune of Sex is on Fire by the Kings of Leon. With 'your sex is on fire' replaced with 'the milk has expired', 'my mum is a liar' and 'she had a penis'. Madness. But the highlight of this one was their song called 'What Would Jesus Do?'. So, you know, the point of asking it is that Jesus is a paragon of man, so to speak. But the thing is, if he was how the Christians actually believe he was - you know, a zombie magician - then there's no fucking way any of us can hope to emulate 1% of his awesomeness. So there's no point! Genius.

Last and not least, there was Shappi Khorsandi - who, by the by, is miniscule. Definitely shorter than Napoleon. Anyways, she was wonderfully funny - genuinely enganging and so ludicrously quick with a line that sometimes it's tough to keep up. Her material was interesting too - about no-one having enough time to be an activist these days, hence the title The Distracted Activist. Can't really pick out one highlight in particular...though she did mistake me and Fee for staff at the Pleasance, which was fun!

That's it, really. Big update, for once! Adieu!

Forgotten Milestones

Didn't notice, but the Harry Potter review was my 150th post! Not one of those fake anniversary posts, either - 150 posts including 34-and-a-half movie reviews, 7-and-a-half video game reviews, and an inordinately large amount of random shite to fill the gaps. Not going so badly, so thanks to everyone who's visited for your time! If there was no-one reading it, I wouldn't bother...but so long as some traffic comes trickling my way...well, I should probably get on with it!

Fringe is going well. That's about it really - it's a job, y'know?

Got no less than three shows coming up in the next week that I'm going to see. First up on Thursday is Adam Hills. If you live in Britain or Australia and haven't seen him on any of the gamut of comedy panel shows that grace our screens, then what the hell? If you aren't in that demographic, you're kinda forgiven. Anyways, he's Australian and he's got an artificial foot. Enjoy.

Then there's Matt Kirshen, who I'm marginally less enthusiastic about, but Fee loves him. Seems to me that he recycles the same material. But then again, I only saw him at a stand-up showcase, and comedians usually have a little set planned for such occasions, so I shouldn't hold it against him. Must...wait...till...after...show...before...judging... Anyways, have a look.

Finally, there's Dylan Moran. You should know who he is, and I can't be arsed to Google him! Watch Monster over Like Totally, but whatever - he's great. His new show is called What It Is, and I've got tickets! Yay!

Nothing much else happening. Got Watchmen on Blu-Ray, which was good. It's added to my miniscule BD collection consisting of only Sweeney-Todd! Anyways, Watchmen was exactly as good as I remember it being - and in HD, it was almost like watching it in the cinema again. Only thing missing was the big surround sound, but that's still a work in progress thing that I'm planning on installing...well...y'know, when I can destroy walls without forfeiting a flat deposit.

Anyways, I'm going to try and get loads of photos of the Festival, maybe give those who can't come over to Edinburgh a small slice of what it's like! If you are coming up, give a shout out too, I'd genuinely love to hear what other people are up to!

That's it, really...bye now!