It has taken a month
for me to write this final instalment, about the last weekend of the
Fringe, but better than never and distance can give some perspective.
The last weekend of the
Fringe is a particularly desperate and strange time. The successful
shows are riding the end of the crest of a wave that may never come
again while the unsuccessful shows are stumbling along, half-maimed,
fighting to reach the finish line.
On the Friday myself
and The Moose went to see Alice at The Space.
Alice was, of course,
based on Alice in Wonderland
which is the perfect show for Edinburgh in August - nowhere does the
line, "You must be mad, or you wouldn't be here," resonate
so clearly. Alice
began at midnight and was a two-hour long promenade piece, which
makes it sound like more of an endurance test than it was - most of
the time we just moved from one room to another and then sat down
rather than remained standing.
It
was, if you'll pardon the pun, an excellent use of the space. As we
passed from room to room in what seemed to be a labyrinthine location
we were guided by the cats, two women dressed as cats one of whom
asked me how long I had been a hedgehog. I replied that I had been
for several years which is nothing but the truth, hedgehogging has
run in my family for generations. She then later asked me how long I
had been a rabbit, I reminded her I was a hedgehog. I will not be
slurred in such a manner.
The
show itself was a surreal melding of the fictional Alice in
Wonderland and the story of the
lives behind it (though that itself was a fictionalised version of
that story). It was wonderfully performed and at times deeply
disturbing, the scene in which they torture a baby with pepper was
particularly grim. The whole play did an excellent job of plunging
into a world much like that of the rabbit hole - a world where you
didn't quite understand the rules anymore. Near the end I was
kidnapped by one of the cats, led down a secret passage and told to
'follow Alice'. However, it was never clear when I was supposed to
follow her so I ended up doing nothing. It didn't seem to affect the
performance any, though, and it certainly reinforced my impression
that this was a world in which I did not understand the rules.
Alice was
one of those shows the Fringe is really for. Experimental, requiring
a large ensemble cast and a unique space - I'm not sure there is any
other place or time in the world that it would work quite so well. It
drew a large audience on the day The Moose and I saw it and I believe
it was one of the most successful pieces in the Fringe.
The
fact it was so successful made my final meeting with cat doubly
strange. I encountered the cat that kidnapped me on the street the
next day, no longer dressed as a cat, handing out leaflets for
another show in order to make money. Presumably that particular show
needed a last surge in advertising as it had not been so successful.
It is part of the perverse economy of the Fringe that someone from a
successful show made extra money by handing out leaflets for an
unsuccessful show.
*
* *
That
Saturday was given over to the day job for the entire day but
afterwards I went with a fellow guide to the Captain's Bar. There I
encountered a multitude of people I knew, Mike Daviot of the
wonderful Hyde&Seek whom I had performed with, people involved in
the making of the Speakeasy in which I have performed, someone I had
performed with last year in the Fringe... all there separately. Half
the bar was filled with people I knew in some theatrical capacity.
This
sort of serendipity happens often in the Fringe and during the
Festival in general but I doubt it is something people who neither
local nor performers experience - how could they? Nevertheless the
coincidental meetings that would be considered far-fetched if they
occurred in fiction are part of the process - the neurons of the
Festival firing at random and conceiving new combinations of old
acquaintances.
After
the Captain's Bar I went to Whistle Binkies to dance and drink until
I had drunk so much the bouncers threw me out... or, rather, told me
it was time to go and I drunkenly acquiesced. Working all day on the
street during a Saturday in the Fringe might not drive every person
to drink until they go mad, but it certainly does the trick for
me.
* * *
* * *
That
Sunday was the day to finally see two shows I had been dying to see
through all or most of the Fringe. Firstly I went to see my friend
Wild Card Kitty, who had also performed with me in the Fringe last
year.
The
venue she was performing at was an odd spot. Obviously a sports bar
for most of the year, it was a bit out of the way to be offering free
shows in the Fringe but on the plus side it did serve good hot-dogs
at a very cheap price. I believe it was called the Phoenix Bar and if
you're ever looking for a good, cheap hot-dog near Leith Walk I
recommend it.
Wild
Card Kitty's show is a comedy burlesque involving a succession of
increasingly wild characters compared by Wild Card Kitty herself. It
was amusing and entertaining (and educational, about the backstage
world of burlesque) and for that last show drew a fair crowd for a
free Fringe show (apparently the average crowd for such a show is six
people). Having a quick drink with her afterwards I learnt that my
favourite character, the retired 50s burlesque dancer, was generally
the one people liked least. I still say it is the character with the
most legs. I'd give her her own show.
After
that I went back to Whistle Binkies to pick up my diary, which I had
lost during my drunken escapades the previous night, and sat drinking
a pint while listening to the 'comedy' going on there. I say 'comedy'
because that particular act, from what I could hear, was little more
than a run of comedy clichés so old Bruce Forsythe's grandfather
would have been embarrassed to tell them. Nevertheless the crowd
dutifully laughed at every one and he seemed, for what I could hear,
to have a better crowd than Wild Card Kitty. What a difference a
central location makes.
That
evening I summoned The Evil Scotsman. There was a show I had been
hearing rumours of since the Fringe began, a show called What
The Fuck Is This? During this
show, so I had heard, the man performing it - Richard Tyrone Jones -
said no words other than, "What the fuck is this?" for the
entire hour performance.
It
turns out this is not strictly true; he did occasionally change the
order and frequency but he never used any words other than 'what',
'the', 'fuck', 'is' and 'this'. I found the show hilarious, though I
did accidentally sabotage it by spilling most of a pint on the floor
right where Jones later crawled about in what I think was a sleeping
bag. He took his revenge, though, by coming towards me and cutting
off a piece of my hair, holding it aloft and shouting, "What the
fuck is this?" I genuinely had no answer. (I later had The Moose
even up my hair, she had been imploring me to get a haircut for some
time so had no problems with my new, slightly more shorn, look.)
Alice,
Wild Card Kitty and What The Fuck Is This?
all have something in common, despite being on the face of it quite
different shows. That is that they are the essence of what the Fringe
is really for. Forget innumerable interchangeable comedians, some
funny and some dire, it's the experimental stuff that matters. We can
throw in Rebranding Beezlebub
and Hyde&Seek into
that category as well - shows that the Fringe is really about, shows
that would struggle to exist without it even if, sometimes, they
struggle to exist within it as well.
*
* *
Monday
was technically the last day of the Fringe, although many shows made
Sunday their last day. It was truly the dying of the light, I didn't
plan on seeing any shows but I had work during the day and as such I
walked the streets of a city that had just had the shit beaten out of
it by theatre and comedy.
Frank
Skinner stood resplendent in his suit for his show Man in a
Suit but it appeared as though
someone had bitten a massive chunk out of him. Somebody else had
stuck a Yes sticker on the nose of pug Russell Kane was holding in
his posters and (presumably) somebody else had scratched his eyes
out. In my view a reasonable reaction to a man taking up several
prominent boards around the city to advertise a show that was only on
for three days.
The
crowds were dispersing and the city was subdued. The Festival was
gone for another year. In a week there would be the Festival
Fireworks, something that happens every year a week after it
finishes, presumably to give frustrated locals something to look
forward to. For a short time the city was calm and pageantry done
with.
Only
for a short time, though, the referendum on independence was upon us
and the fear and loathing was about to really ramp up...
