Back to the Fringe

Yesterday James and I went through to Edinburgh to see a few shows at the Fringe. We had a great time, not only at the shows but also sitting outside at various bars and restaurants in the sunshine; the atmosphere was fantastic.

Our first show was "Thrones the Musical" which was very much aimed at fans of Game of Thrones, which we are. What the young cast may have lacked in polish they more than made up for in enthusiasm and it was very funny. Then we had excellent steak sandwiches at 56 North before going to see Rob Newman. I remember him well from his comedy partnership with David Baddiel in the 1980s; while Baddiel stayed in the public eye, Rob Newman turned more to political activism and writing. His show was an off the wall and passionate attack on brain theories in popular science - if you think that sounds a bit eccentric you would be right! Newman was extremely well informed and put his views across very amusingly with lots of asides and anecdotes; we both loved it. Our final show was Eurobeat which was an absolute joy. It was a scarily accurate tribute to the Eurovision Song Contest and was very, very funny. It was supposed to be taking place in Moldova and the hostess was the iconic Rula Lenska, whose dead-pan delivery in an Eastern European accent was wonderful; when her co-host told her that she was dressed to kill she replied "I haven't been dressed to kill since the KGB was disbanded." The singing and dancing were tremendous and disturbingly similar to real Eurovision entries. At the end we all got to vote - it was a great end to a great evening.