Blog: Steve Day

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Thursday was a big Steve Day, as he was the official voice of the Fringe Voices twitter account. Every day they pass the BATON on to somebody doing the Fringe and they talk about their own experiences - thus Steve talked about flyering theory, BEER, flyers, the fact that review sites always seem to review the same shows as each other, and flyering experiences. The stuff about review sites was ESPECIALLY pertinent (and not just because none of them have reviewed us this time!), why would you want to be the tenth person to review a show that's sold out anyway when you could be the first to review something amazing that needs more people to go? Comedy reviewing needs its own Steve Lamacq!

The effects of this can be seen for shows like The Bravery Test, a one man show by Angus Dunican which I went to for my first show of the day. It was BRILLIANT - moving, funny, DELIGHTFUL - and yet there were only seven people there. It's a bit out of the way (at The Edinburgh City Football Social Club, a FANTASTIC, gorgeous establishment that reminded me very much of pubs from my childhood/The Buffs Club from the year before last, but CLEAN) but it's only five minutes from Princess Street, and totally worth it. A few big reviews could DESERVEDLY be filling the room - if you're up there this week go and see it, go on!

On my way back into town I decided to be Healthy/POSH and go to the John Lewis Cafe for lunch. It was nice - the view, as stated previously, is AMAZING - but I got stuck sat next to a family operating Modern Correct Parenting i.e. allowing their daughter to SCREAM AT THE TOP OF HER VOICE for twenty minutes, ignoring her so she would know this was not a method to get her own way. I'm all for this at home, but GOOD LORD it was a bit much when I was having my lunch. In John Lewis too, What Has The World Come To??!?

I then met Steve "Fringe Voices" Hewitt at Test Tube Comedy, run by Mr Dec Munro who had helped us so much the week before when our venue was closed. Steve was able to partly pay him back by manning the PA system at various points, and enabled an excellent show to go ahead. There was a LOT of interacting with the audience, with two particular nitwits in the front row who didn't realise - despite it being repeatedly pointed out to them - that the comedians could SEE them chatting during their sets, or taking pictures, or generally causing a kerfuffle. The funny thing was that, comedians being comedians, most of them hadn't been there for other people's sets so didn't realise that the ones before them had ALREADY spoken to the two twits, so all of them basically did the same interaction at the start of each set, so by the end the audience ALMOST felt sorry for the twits. Only almost though!

Hungry for even MORE ARTS I then went to see "She Was Probably Not A Robot", which was Quite Good. It was a performance PIECE, gorgeously DONE with the music and acting and very funny bits and lovely interaction, but as usual with this sort of thing I wanted a bit more substance to it. I think this is probably because a) I've seen SO MANY THINGS this fortnight and b) i judge all performance on the basis of Would You Get Away With Doing It First On The Bill At The Bull & Gate in 1998? I accept that this may not be the most valid method of assessing The Arts.

I then did my traditional stomp to and from the flat, arriving at the Dram House Upstairs a bit earlier than usual, then waiting a bit longer than usual to actually get IN. I was worried that the audience we were gently accruing would wander off, but they all followed us inside - in fact I think some people just got swept away with the excitement and came in to the wrong show, as they left 20 minutes in looking a bit confused!

Apart from that it was a GRATE show, huge fun to do and with LARFS aplenty. When it was done Steve and I nipped into the C Venue next door hoping for a cheeky half but, finding only a "cocktail bar" serving bottled lager two floors up, we divvied up the money and went our seperate ways. He in search of noodles, me once more to the flat before coming back into town for our Big Course Meet Up.

There's a whole BUNCH of people from SCHOOL up for the festival and most of us managed to get together for several DELIGHTFUL hours of discourse in the Library Bar at the Teviot. It was really nice to see everyone, though a little bit strange NOT to find myself walking back to Angel Tube station, as I always do after school.

I went home, but for Steve the day of LARKS was not over, as apparently he ended up on stage at the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society spending the interval on stage being NOT The Comedian Ben Target! He ended Steve Day as he began it: being ART!

posted 19/8/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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