We wake up with much trepidation and head on early down to the Buff’s club for the first performance. Unsurprisingly as none of us has really done this sort of thing before we’re all quite nervous. When we arrive at the Buff’s club one of the guys from the show before us – the Edinburgh sceptics – comes up to us and asks us ‘Are you here for the 1.15 show about the paranormal?’
‘No we’re here for the 2.30 show’ replies Hardman giving him a withering if unintentional put down.
Our nerves aren’t helped when one of the Buff’s club local storms out of the Sceptics first performance after 10 minutes and then reopens the door to hurl obscenities at them. ‘You shouldn’t joke about the supernatural – I believe in that stuff’, he growls as he stalks from the back Lodge room of the Buffs to his favourite seat by the juke box.
He then precedes to call us each up in tune to select a song but always chooses the song for us. He chooses Red Hot Chilli Peppers for me and then for Tone he chooses Duffy. As Tone writes in the book, his behaviour embodies the worst elements of men. You’re told to get up, asked to make a choice and then that choice is made for you. And then you’re told to sit back down. As you can probably imagine Tone hates Duffy. Thankfully jukebox Jerry leaves before our performance begins.
Show one
Audience – 12
Bucket – £14.42
Walkouts – 0
Fanzines sold – 1
The performance goes reasonably well – although both Hardman and I miss several of our lines we manage to cycle it back round to the script and no one actually corpses. Antonia and Weave both do well reading from the scripts. Quite a few of the crowd are Hardman’s friends from Uni and so they’re a nice bunch to perform to laughing with glee when I insult Hardman’ s Chris Martin from Coldplay cum Skeletor in a homeless shelter face. For the first time Hardman performs the Lumpman Joe ball popping finale. It gets laughs, which I’m pleased about as it’s divided the people who have seen or read the script already – usually along gender lines. It also looks like popping a balloon will be sufficient to imitate the explosion of Lumpman Joe’s balls and we won’t have to convince the friendly but still slightly intimidating Buff’s Club manager Frank to let us cover their Lodge carpet in water every night.
Some comments from the rest of C4Lf from the book:
WEAVER’S OFFENSIVE BOARD GAME IDEAS # 1
‘10 year anniversary addition of 9/11 board game.
2 x jenga sets (North and South)
All money raised to go to war heroes?
N.B. Added effect, cover in aviation fuel and light at 2.14 pm’
Tone: ‘Fran, buoyed up by an excellent first performance, has taken to flirting outrageously with the very attractive barmaid (whilst goading me with winks from the bar).
If this continues, Tone shall implement sabotage plan A…no more play for Fran. Plans are afoot for a communal sign-up to the Buff’s club (if they accept women are not into the military or slapping their daughters…)
Hardman: ‘Survived the first show…many thanks to Fran’s quick onstage thinking to save my ass.’
Andreas Lynchian cryptic comment: ‘The Buffalo has pretty eyes/Frank called me sweetheart.’
After a happy afternoon drinking in the Buffs we head up to the Greyfriars to drink at a venue closer to the Pleasance Dome where we’ll be watching Josie Long. We go to a busy Greyfriars and I have Yorkshire Terrier Bitter. The pub is crowded and we discuss Weaver’s new found interest in Rugby League as it plays on the screens behind us.
Greyfriars
Décor – 3.17
Atmosphere – 2.33
Booze – 2.17
Clientele – 3.00
Bar staff – 3.75
Average – 2.88
We then head to the Pleasance to see Josie Long’s show – The Future is Another Place
Josie Long – The Future is Another Place Review Saturday 06.08.2011
I saw Josie’s current show already at her London previews where I drunkenly shouted ‘What about Bramwen?’ And then immediately regretted it, partly because Josie Long turned to me and said ‘would you behave like that in a theatre?’ And partly because I’d mispronounced the boozy Bronte brother’s name which is of course Bramwell. I really love Josie Long. When I saw her last year, she’d just started moving from her quirky whimsy and was moving to her Nye Bevin t-shirt phase and idolising the post-war 1945 labour government. Now for her 2011 Show – The Future is Another Place – Long’s politics is almost totally political, exploring the idea that the rage created by conservative governments fuels the best art...ala punk in 1977. Often political comedy can become heavy and worthy. But the idiosyncratic nature of Long’s world view keeps it light and flowing. Who else does jokes about their own exuberant desire to be part of a Scandinavia- style taxation system?
Throughout the gig Long breaks up her political stuff with Heidegerian moments of being in the moment – like when she wild swims and cries out with delight ‘I’m an otter, I’m an otter.’ I feel she;s still a bit unsure of how audiences will be react to her newly politicised self and that they’ll turn on her and go ‘why aren’t you talking about lovely things Josie, why have you become so serious?’ At one point in the gig where Long is decrying the lazy cliché of ‘why should a cleaner’s taxes go to paying for an art degree’. A gentleman of a certain age in the audience, ‘goes hear-hear.’ Tone thinks this throws Josie but in fact I think this lends a suitably dramatic tension to the gig. Every time Josie tells a joke I look over at him and his stern-faced wife to see if they smile...they do on occasion. But it’s an important reminder that Tories are everywhere and the world needs articulate dissenting voices to channel the anger of the public into positive demonstration, rather than just undirected rage. I haven’t heard a more incisive and likeable comedian talking about the coalition than Josie Long and would recommend her to everyone. Sadly my friends don’t quite agree and give Josie average marks. Not me though I give Josie 5s for both Humour, Skill and Sexiness.
Humour 3.66
Skill 3.90
Scotchness 2.60
Audience 3.32
Sexiness 2.90
Overall 3.28
Afterwards following some goading from Hardman and Andrea, Josie after the gig but can’t face the shame of plugging our show to her and instead congratulate her on her material. She seems a bit unsure of how it went. Tone is highly amused that she doesn’t remember me from the preview gig.
Fabulous Abs – Abigoliah Schamaun review 06.08.2011
After Josie we head off to the Counting House to watch some free comedy courtesy of the evil Laughing Horse Comedy Free Fringe – the nemesis organisation of the PBH Free Fringe. First up we see Abigoliah Schamaun in her show Fabulous Abs. When we ask her what her shows about when she flyers us she shouts ‘IT’S ABOUT ME!’ More specifically it focuses on her sex-life, relationships and her surprising flexibility as a yoga teacher. She’s almost the opposite of Josie Long in that her set is very relationship and sex focussed, packed full of the abortion jokes that seem to be the in thing for female New York comedians. The tiny lounge room in the Counting House is packed and hot but Abs controls the crowd well. Although some of the crowd are a little taken a back at the start they quickly warm to her – particular for her ‘balls in the mouth material. There’s something about New York comedians, presumably raised on a diet of Woody Allen and Seinfeld, that lends a really fast rhythm to their sets. And they seem particularly gag heavy but also very much focussed on themselves and their own self-absorbed lives. The aforementioned Abs proves really popular with the Liberation Front. In the end she gets a better overall score then Josie Long. This saddens me somewhat but hey that’s the democracy of the group voting system.
Humour 3.80
Skill 3.90
Scotchness 1.90
Audience 3.50
Sexiness 4.64
Overall 3.55
Next up is Dirty words with Kirsty Munro
Dirty words – Kirsty Munro 06.08.2011
Kirsty’s show is basically a discussion of relationships liberally sprinkled with those bang on trend whimsical words for female genitalia like ‘frou frou’ or ‘lady-garden’, that all the kids are using nowadays. Lady Garden seems to be the zeitgeist word for 2011 I hear it everywhere – there’s even an Edinburgh show called it but not a garden...not yet anyway. Kirsty’s show suffers somewhat in that we’ve already seen Fabulous Abs do a really good tight set about sex and relationships. The ballroom is also half-full and the audience, apart from us, seem a bit dead. There’s also a continuous distract beat in the room coming from the pub downstairs. I’m quite amused with her continuous flirtation with Weaver throughout the gig. Tone is less amused when Munro drags her onstage to replicate some male flirtatious dancing techniques with her.
Humour 1.1
Skill 1.6
Scotchness 1.6
Audience 2
Sexiness 2.3
Overall 1.72
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