Fringe wrap

These are the last few shows I'll be talking about from the Edinburgh fringe.

Charlotte Young tells stories about the clandestine missions given to her by a mysterious instructor and her attempts to track him down.  She was half of the crew who gave us the Richard Dawkins show earlier in the week.  Intelligent, well developed and very funny.  Charlotte's multi-media presentation style was perhaps better suited to television than stage, but we all had a great time at her show, Audi, Vide, Tace.

Go see her if you get the chance.

We took the Scoundrel to see Matthew Highton, and Matthew recommended we see a couple of other performers.  The first of these was Paul Foot.  Paul's comedy was unconventional; the first 20 minutes of his hour show were dedicated to a single joke (he took time), which was one of the best jokes I heard at the festival.  While the remaining material was not as strong, the audience seemed split between the horrified and the overjoyed with his performance.  I particularly like the time and effort Mr Foot put into berating audience members who heckled.

Go see him if you have discount tickets, but don't expect a standard stand-up show.

The last show Matthew recommended, and the last we saw at the festival, was Dr Brown's show Because which took absurdest comedy to its illogical extreme.  At least a dozen audience members left during the show, but we were never going to be amongst them.  Between starting food fights with the front row to having volunteers rub him down with baby oil, Dr Brown specialised in taking an awkward situation and pushing it one step further.  We were rolling on the floor with laughter and would certainly see him again.

Go.  Go, but don't wear your best clothes unless you want them to smell of banana, cornflakes and other less savory stuff.

Okay, festival behind us.  I promise there is an Edinburgh wrap-up coming, along with the first couple of Berlin posts.