• Ho! – In which missions are declared
• Day 1 – Where I travel, eat food and watch the A-Team.
• Day 2 – Where I watch a film, see The Brigstocke and stalk Andrew O’Neill.
• Day 3 – Where I watch Helen Arney and Trevor Lock, and eat a kebab.
• Day 4 – Where I don’t do a lot, but do drink some whisky and watch Rich Sandling.
• Day 5 – Where I do lots, including seeing Richard Herring (I’m not a stalker).
• Day 6 – Where I go home after not being murdered at a mysterious feast with Coney.

I failed half of my sekrit missions, went too early to see Robin Ince (who as far as I can see from Twitter is organising and running about 20 shows a day…) and in the end didn’t actually take very many photos. However, I did have a burger cooked in a pizza oven and an excellent kebab, was recognised by two performers, participated in an occult ritual and saw Jerry Sadowitz eating an ice cream, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Oh yeah, I also saw some rather good shows…

Waiting for the left luggage office at Waverley on 12seconds.tv

Luggage dropped, I left my travelling companions and wandered back towards Bristo Square for my secretive afternoon activity – a feast with Coney.

I’m not generally known for my love of the more experimental ends of theatre, or even theatre in general, but I have a specially uneasy place reserved in my heart for interactive theatre. I’m the sort of person who likes to sit in a darkened room and be entertained without any particular input other than the occasional “Ooh!”, “Aah!” and “He’s behind you!”, so the idea of either one-on-one or free-form interactive theatre fills me with a sense of dread. However, my occasional comedy-buddy Michael is very much up for such things, and he sent me an email containing one line and a link: “You must do this thing – http://www.youhavefoundconey.net/thefeast.html”

I called the number, left my name and a description (balding but with a ponytail and occasionally rubbish beard), and then forgot about it. A day later I received a text message from Coney: “InSpace Gallery – Coney has left you something in locker E1234″. I popped over to the gallery and sat in locker E1234 was an envelope with my name on containing an invitation to go to the feast on the following day. I asked around at the feast and while several of us had found our invites in the gallery, they had been left in a variety of places, including my favourite – “Behind the champagne section in Lidl”…

Having left my flatmates, and still having no idea what to expect, I arrived at the Forest Fringe on time and hung around until the doors of the first floor room where opened and we were beckoned in. There were about 20 of us and we sat around a long dining table in the darkened room, lit by a few spots. Shortly after we sat an envelope was dropped in front of one of the diners, a theme that would be repeated during the meal, and an announcement was read, apologising for Coney’s absence, assuring us that he’d try to attend if he could and a request that we talk to each other and tell our stories. Assistants appeared from the darkness and offered us chunks of melon.

After the melon was cleared more envelopes were dropped and we heard the beginnings a some short stories, read out by the diners, all familiar and hinting at the biblical and folkloric. Our second course was distributed, a plate of what was described as ‘insubstantial salad’ and further notes were passed out to a select few, instructing us to keep quiet and advance the conversation by questioning our companions, choosing who we thought would be the most interesting person to sit next to at the table. Shortly after another note from Coney arrived, preceded by text messages asking some of us to take photographs of the dinner, instructing us all to move around and sit next to new people. In my standard lazy fashion I didn’t move far and was presented with a new set of dining companions.

The party game element of the meal came in around this point, with a note from Coney apologising for his continued absence and a request that we discuss and decided which three people, alive or dead, we’d like to have as our dinner guests. The guests were chosen (Bob Dylan, Bill Hicks and a 1920s exotic dancer [I think...] whose name and achievements were discussed quietly at the other end of the table) and a volunteer called Coney’s phone number to let him know. We then moved on to quiche and charades, followed by more stories, and bread and cheese. A final story, that of Persephone, led to a dessert of pomegranite and some note writing for Coney, detailing our ideal dinner party, before we were let out blinking into the daylight.

Overall I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. It was slightly ramshackle in its freeformness, with some people reading out Eyes Only notes or not really getting what was going on, as well as the arrangement of the room making whole group discussion difficult. However, it was enjoyable – I got to talk to a bunch of interesting people and as I got into the mood of things did ‘act’ a bit, talking up more and paying a lot more attention than normal to what I was saying. It wasn’t really what I was expecting, not that I had much of an idea, but was certainly interesting.

I wandered back towards the station, but still having 3 hours to kill decided to stop in at the Rowan Caves for a free sketch show – Sunken Luggage. They’d pinged me on twitter the night beforehand and despite not being a fan of live sketch comedy thought I might as well stop in. In short – it was a bit rubbish. The people in the group showed some excellent comedy timing and the asides to each other were great, but the sketches themselves really didn’t work. They went for the meta route, with a sketch show about starting a sketch show, and apart from a couple of groanworthy moments there were a couple of good jokes interspersed with a lot of awkward shufflings from the audience.

Final show of my festival done I stocked up on Tunnocks Caramel Logs (better than the standard wafer biscuits) and boarded my train. It was at this point that the ordeal hinted at in my earlier posts started. I pointed out a spare seat on my otherwise empty table for four to a lady who was wrestling a wheely bag along and after she sat (swapping for my seat as she couldn’t sit backwards, no that wouldn’t be right, it’d make her sick, which isn’t what we’d want is it? No definitely not) she launched into her life story. For over an hour, as my travelling companions strove to hide their uncontrollable laughter behind their hands and knitting, she told me about her father’s death, her recent visit to his gravestone, his little dog, her relationship with her step-mother, her husband’s leg amputations, the progression of the gangrene that led to the amputations, the various support institutions in Doncaster for her and her husband, the state of the houses of all of her children from her two marriages, the problems with the train she took up to Scotland… On and on, with barely a breath. When we hit Alnmouth an older couple sat down and she latched onto the lady who sat next to her and started up her stories again. Her husband quickly saw the peril and led her away to the dining car, where the lady from Doncaster followed. Luckily they were sat on a table for two, but the nice but talkative lady ended up sat at the next table and told a new impromptu dining companion, and from the volume of her voice everyone else in the car, about her husband’s gangrene and the various operations he had which led to his leg amputation.

The steward let her off paying for her pot of tea at the end of her meal as she didn’t have enough money and was scaring diners away.

The Alnmouth couple stayed in the dining car until about an hour after Doncaster, but even as I got her and her bag into the atrium of train carriage as we pulled into Doncaster I heard snippets of her life story told to the random captive audience who were waiting for the train to stop, punctuated by silences as the end of carriage door slid shut from time to time.

When she went the passengers all breathed a sigh of relief, some laughs were exchanged and looks of awe occasionally came in my direction. I was exhausted – it’s much more difficult than I thought to be talked at for 2 hours. I should probably not do it to other people.

I am now sat in silent bliss, the raucous laughter of the surrounding seats now having died down after the departure of the lovely, but talkative, lady and I am typing and looking after my new found travelling companions’ seats like a good brow beaten child.

On the Saturday I had a number of missions, as I had a new plan for Monday (to be described in Monday’s entry) and thus my afternoons were starting to fill. I started the day with breakfast/lunch at the Tempting Tattie, the Richard Herring belove-d baked potato shop a few minutes walk up the road from my flat. He has spoken about the place from time to time (and is trying to organise a ‘gathering’ next week sometime to try and run them out of potatoes) and thought I’d go along for some stalker points. Mr Herring wasn’t in there, but while I was chomping on my tempting potato (with beans and cheese – only £3.30) Hattie Hayridge wandered in for a pre-show snack. She doesn’t eat very much.

I popped round the corner for my first show of the day – Rich Sandling’s Perfect Movie. It’s part of the Free Fringe and features Mr Sandling (who I saw and very much enjoyed in his tuberculoid cave last year) and a different bunch of comedic guests each day, talking about their favourite movies and acting out some scenes. We had Paul Gannon (favourite film Ghostbusters) telling us of the wonders of Howard The Duck and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, followed by Matt Forde acting out, with Rich Sandling, scenes from his favourite film – the cheery “Dead Man’s Shoes”. It was rather good, even if the afternoon free fringe shows do seem to be full of people hiding from the rain, drunk locals and other people who are slightly confused as to what’s going on. The guys who stood up in the middle of the otherwise seated crowd having a loud chat while Rich Sandling tried to open the show stopped being funny very quickly. Although unfortunately not to themselves.

I departed from the Canon’s Gait and went for a bit of a meander, stopping for a look at hats as well as checking out what other mid afternoon shows were to be had. Eventually I settled on a show at The Dragonfly (a venue with the best room for a gig ever – it was someone’s front room, complete with sofas and recessed bar) – You Are Being Lied To by David Mulholland. It was a fairly amusing romp through the way that newspapers lie to you, with some special attention for The Sun, Daily Mail and Telegraph, as expected.

I wandered back over the hill to the whisky society to meet up with the gang for some beverages, and laziness pinned us to our chairs for some tasty whisky and food, again being struck by the ‘no reservations on a busy night in Edinburgh’ problem. The others went their various ways to find shows and I ended up back in the flat, having lost the will to do much but sleep, and after the internet broke, removing my ability to book a ticket to the rather good looking Stand Late Show, turned in early. I am rock and roll incarnate.

Please.

Anyways, I got up late on Friday with nothing on my list of things to do and a big list of maybes. As such, I sat on my arse for a while and finally made the decision to wander towards The Stand to see Simon Munnery. It was an ok show, but his material slowly metamorphoses from Edinburgh to Edinburgh, it seems, and seeing him a couple of times since last year removed most of the surprises, even with Mac on drums and a new DVD of slightly random short movies.

I ran off without adjourning over the road for the after show continuation beverages (and reading of the random pieces of paper that people had stuck in the bucket at the front of the stage) and got over to the Surgeons Hall for Helen Arney’s ‘8 1/2 Songs About Love (and Other Myths)’. Helen is another ex-Imperial College person and a friend of a friend, and one of my stated Edinburgh missions was to say hello from Steve and scare her. Unfortunately for the ’scare’ part of the mission, it seems I have enough google juice that searching for “Helen Arney Edinburgh” brought me up on the first page, ruining the potential for surprise. Hello Helen if you have googled again. The show was pretty good, with some fun songs and an occasional wander into surreal territory that made me grin, and Helen seems to be enjoying herself almost too much. I am further inspired to start playing the accordion, although more on that in Sunday’s entry.

I ran off quickly after the show as I had another to go to – Trevor Lock. Formerly known as the man with the very small face on TMWRNJ, he has since transformed into a whirling ball of free association and strangeness, and he filled his hour with equal measures of playing with the audience and spitting out sequences of almost connected facts and strange situations. For an audience focused comedian having a french couple in the front row where the girl was translating everything as things went along is comedy gold. As was the man with elegant umbrella technique… Excellent.

It was at this point that I realised that darkness was falling and that I had consumed nothing but a bagel, a couple of pints and a restorative Irn Bru during the day, and a worrying hunger crash was approaching. In an almost biblical manner I was turned away from every restaurant due to not having a booking on a Friday during Festival season and ended up in Mamari’s kebab house. Thank you Mamari’s, without you I was certain to have become a small puddle of flesh on the rocky hillsides of Edinburgh. Or just had to go home a bit early.

Post kebab I wandered around a bit and finding nothing that interested me on the late show selection went back to the flat, investigated, for scientific reasons, some whisky and awaited my flatmates. They rolled in and thus began a strange few hours, involving singing, reminiscing and, in one case, the removal of trousers. There is some video, but the audio alone is too horrific for mortal ears…although the guilty now know the price if they ever cross me.

It seems I’ve got into a bad habit of walking a lot and forgetting to eat. This is not an ideal situation and I’m writing this now, while watching Steven Seagull run up and down a train, in an effort to get my brain onto paper before I forget what I’ve seen.

First up we have Thursday, a day of mild randomness. I started with a wander town a bit to check out Black Medicine Coffee (tasty coffee served with Danish Butter Biscuits – WIN!) and then holed up in the Cameo Cinema to see Mesrine. It was not as marvellous as most of the reviews seem to suggest, but I am looking forward to part two. Even better was the cinema itself – nice and airy with comfy seats and loads of leg room. I rather like the idea of living in Edinburgh, and The Cameo has added another reason to the list.

After a quick pitstop at the whisky society and an aborted attempt to see Wilson Dixon (damn you stupid people in queues when you’re in a hurry) I went back to our flat and had a bit of a kip. Next up was my next booking – Marcus Brigstocke’s God Collar. As expected it was good, although Mr Brigstocke seems to have wandered into the same territory as many of the comedians who I’ve grown up with – a few years older than me, they now pretty much all have kids and have sections in their sets about their kids. Brigstocke never veered into the mawkish zone that some do, but there was a bit of a contrast towards the end of his set, with cute anecdotes clashing with religious examination. However, it’s not every day that an iPhone hating man gives me the idea for my killer iPhone app – a gerbil masturbation simulator, which will display Marcus Brigstocke’s grinning face when the gerbil is ‘finished’. It makes sense, trust me.

I then wandered down to The Tron to grab one of the many shows that Andrew O’Neill is doing – this one his straight stand-up show, Occult Comedian. It was, as I expected, rather good, touching on subjects from quota based transvestitism to the joys of the occult, via Roy Walker and musical classifications within the genre of ‘metal’. He ended his set, as many comedians do seem to up here, with an advert for his next show, starting 30 minutes later at midnight – Andrew O’Neill’s Probably Massively Inadvisable Occult Experiment. And it was free. I couldn’t really say no…

Down Cowgate a little way from the Underbelly is the venue this year known as The Rowan Caves, but which last year were the dodgier end of the Underbelly’s performance sheds – I saw Rich Sandling perform an excellent set to 7 people (3 of whom were staff) there last year, including a break half way through to cough up a lung in a TB-like hacking fit brought on by a month of performing in a dank cave. They seem to have put in a bit of work this year and they are now dry thankless caves, which is much better. Mr O’Neill, and his historian assistant (and occasional poet) Al Cummins, ran us through a brief history of some of modern western magical tradition and then outlined the ritual we were going to do – a pentagram banishment, an invocation of the godforms of Ganesha, Eris and Babylon, a request for some ‘cool magicky shit’ to happen in the next day, and a banishment. A quick beer later and the room was cleared, be-incensed and there was ritual, which was thoroughly silly as I think all magic should be.

We were all asked to let them know if any ‘cool magicky shit’ happened to us, but now 24 hours later all I’ve had is that I found a kebab shop on the way back from the ritual that I’m certain wasn’t there before. I really wanted a kebab while we were summoning, so who knows…

So, I made it to Edinburgh without losing any travel companions, despite the best efforts of the Metropolitan line to stretch the bonds of friendship and cause deep examination of the terms & conditions of our train tickets. The journey up was uneventful for me, as being a group of 5 we had a table + 1 seat. I took the +1 and ended up surrounded by a lady and her two children – one in mid teens, the other an acrobatic toddler who spent most of the time claiming that she wanted to eat yoghurt, only to get bored after she’d played with a spoon for a bit, and trying to disassemble an iPod rather than watching the bright shapes of the Tellytubbies bouncing around on its screen. I wish I’d had Tellytubbies to watch. I ended up abusing the train wifi to natter on twitter and attempt to read my email, an endeavour that didn’t seem to work all that well due to the flaky nature of the connection.

We eventually rolled in to Edinburgh, saw two fights before arriving at our flat (10 minutes walk from Waverley) and then had the heavens open for about 5 minutes, causing the rest of the posse to desert me and hide in a nearby cafe while I waited for the keys to our flat to turn up. Which they did. I thoroughly recommend the Auld Reekie Apartments – good price, and Craig, who seems to be the bossman, is a nice chap.

We had lunch in the cafe place that was used to shelter from the rain – rather than being simply a purveyor of coffee and the like it turned out they are a Turkish cafe and restaurant, and our stack of hot and cold mezze were rather excellent.

After a quick shop and stop to grab tickets (the Fringe shop has a row of swipe card readers attached to ticket printing machines in their basement – swipe card, get booked tickets, little queuing. Nicely done) we ran towards the Gilded Balloon (running for reasons of me thinking the show started half an hour after it did…) for our first show of the festival – A-Team: The Musical.

It was a good start – shaky in places with chunks that seemed to be very much more loved by the cast than the crowd, but with some flashes of excellence that made up for any missteps. There’s something quite marvellous about the four people badly impersonating (apart from the guy playing BA, who had the disinterested look of contempt down well) the A-Team running around the stage while squatting in a wooden replica of the A-Team van and being chased by two guys in a wooden replica of an army jeep (which ends up turning over on its side…). The singing was variable and the analysis of the structure of an A-Team episode sometimes over done, but I rather liked it. The bad guy (Action Jackon, father of LaToya and The Reverend Jesse) did an especially good job, stealing the songs by rapping in a wildly changing accent and cultivating rather excellent ginger sideburns.

We finished the evening with dinner at The Witchery (after a swift half at the rather excellent Brass Monkey – the back room is a giant bed like area for people to lounge around on, and they did not only a nice pint of Deuchars but spent some care in preparing a gin and tonic). It was a strange meal, with quite different opinions of the food – the starters were uniformly great, as was the one dessert we tried and cheeseboard, but the main courses were variable and expensive for what we got. My trio of smoked fish to start was very nicely put together, but my main of lamb loin was quite pedestrian, if nice and well cooked. I was also slightly dismayed by the whisky selection which, while reasonably priced, wasn’t particularly interesting. It’s the second time I’ve been there and last time was quite special, this time not so much.

To properly end the night we had a look for a bar that would still serve us a couple of beverages for the road, and after a false start at a just closed Monteith’s (which I liked a lot last time I was up here but looks like it may be sliding) ended up in Whiski, which was great. I tried the last Springbank that they had which I hadn’t tried (Madeira Cask – disappointing) and after a chat with the barman was refused a dram of Hazelburn and was instead poured his recommendation of Longrow Gaja Barolo, which seems to be the whisky that I’ve been looking for for a while – Campbelltowny saltiness with a nice chunk of peat to it. They’ve got a few more Longrow’s on the shelf and are open late, so I may have now found my new best friends…

Anyways, as half of the posse decided that they should do some investigating of the late night drinking potential of the area the flat is now quite quiet (although it wasn’t quite so quiet at 4:30am when they got back) and I am investigating the potential of the Free Fringe. I also need to find out what time Cadenhead’s opens, as I hear they might have a cask Longrow in a barrel on the counter that I can buy some of…