Fringe Weekend

With Tim coming to visit it was planned to have a Fringe weekend, aka see some shows and drink some beers. Tim got in in the afternoon and i met him at Waverly station. It had been raining all day and continued to rain so it was a typical welcome to Scotland. We went back to the flat and got onto the computer and also read the festival guides to pick out what we were going to do. After much deliberation, we booked a couple of shows. It is surprisingly hard what to pick given the huge amount of stuff on and also because you can really just go on what the reviews and ads say as most of the comedians and artists i had never heard of. The ones i had heard of i had mainly seen and it's not fun seeing the same comedian more than once.

After a disco nap we headed out for food and some drinks before our first show. It was still raining which made getting through the crowds of umbrellas on the Royal Mile a painful experience. I was glad i wasn't seeing the Tattoo that night. We ended up going to Bobby's Bar in front of Greyfrier's Church. I had seen the menu before and i thought it looked good. We got a drink and was then told serving dinner was now over. Granted it was about 9pm. So given the Grassmarket is so near by we headed down there as there are plenty of places to eat there. We stumbled on a Italian restaurant. Shock horror, i ate the pizza. It was OK actually, first alight pizza i had since arriving (except for the Marks and Spencer pizza which is surprisingly good). After some serious food stuffing i had developed a food baby.
We then headed to George Street where the show was. We had got tickets to Best of the Fest 09. Basically each night of the festival a selection of comedians (3 and one MC) would do the show. I guess it's a taster for their shows. We went to Wetherspoons before and had a pint then it was on to the midnight show. The show was HILARIOUS. We saw Fred MacAuley, Wil Anderson (again), Matt Kirshen, and Greg Behrendt. Fred was a surprisingly funny Scott. I liked Greg the most. I was curious to see him as he was one of the writers on Sex and the City and he wrote He's Just Not That Into You...and we all know that book! I love seeing good comedy shows, really lifts your spirits. After the show we headed back to the flat ready for the next day.

After a sizable sleep in we headed over to Udderbelly (third time for me) to see Pythonesque. This was theatre and meant to be some what of a tribute to Monty Python. They basically went through the story of the Pythons through sketches that had a Python flavour. It was quite funny but i must confess, i did keep wanting them to do Python's famous speeches. I yearned for a Parrot Sketch, or a Cheese Shop sketch....or even the Argument Clinic. Ah well, funny none the less. By the end of this i was pretty starving so we headed onto the Royal Mile to hunt for some food. We ended up going to Wannaburger. My choice really. We managed to get a seat outside where you can people watch in the thousands. And the burger...v. good.

After lunch we headed to Tim's mates place. Tim knows a few fellas who now live in Edinburgh. They were heading out that night and we planned on joining them. From their place (well i did go home and change, i don't go out in a tee and jeans!) we went to the bar. I cant remember what it was called, Smith something, not that it matters. Some drinks later and some hippy music playing due to the Woodstock anniversary celebrations going on in the pub, we called it a night.

A good day was had.

Royal Mile street theater



Royal Mile street theater



with Tim