"Can We Not Just Cancel This Shite?"

Friday 18th August

Today was the first day of really bad rain during the festival. Luckily I had the foresight to purchase a £2 polly bag poncho from a sports shop on Rose Street. So that made me slightly less wetter, if more stupid looking.

After trudging around in the wet for a while I went to see the play that Viv's in Falling For Grace at the Cafe Royal. Written by comedian Keir McAllister, it's about two men who find themselves on a multi-storey car park roof, each about to kill themselves. Viv is in it for about the last 15 minutes.

Some of you may know that I absolutely hated Tinsel Town when it was on telly about 6 years ago. If you don't remember it, it was a pointless drama about clubbing, set in Glasgow. It addressed every stereotype available and was an affront to the licence payer. Easily one of the worst things ever put on television. Well, this play featured David Paisley, one of the actors from Tinsel Town. I think he played the young gay guy who went out with the Policeman (who was struggling with his sexuality). The other male in the cast, Paul Pirie, really held it together for me. Even when he wasn't saying anything I was watching him to see what he would do.

It was a decent production, with a couple of twists, though you probably could see them coming if you were looking. It comes apart a little bit towards the end, as some of the characters reactions to situations stop becoming believable.

From there our cast met up at the Greyfriars Kirk House cafe. Victoria was worried about the reaction to the show over the last couple of nights. She insited to Graeme and I that "We have a funny show guys". To which Graeme replied, "You're delusional!" He went on to elaborate that the show was crap and that she should take a look at herself.

As you may imagine this wasn't met with the enthusatic response Graeme perhaps was looking for. I took a step back from proceedings and let them come to the realisation that there was only 3 more shows to go and may as well make the most of it.

I stopped to speak to Nadia from Staggered Spaces, to tell her I enjoyed their show. They had a 2 star review from The Scotsman, though the reviewer seemed to miss some of the point of the show. Victoria then flyered her for our show, which Nadia thought she could make. I'm not sure if she thought I was joking as I furiously signalled 'No. Don''t come.' Victoria did tell her that "It's not the same comedy as yours". To which I asked, "By that do you mean it's not funny?" Vic knows we're joking...

We went in to see the show that's on before ours, Anyway, a Scottish play that was based on a sketch that was at one time part of the radio series Velvet Cabaret. It centres round a core group of friends, three girls, all of whom have the usual girl troubles; men, weight etc.

There were a couple of good one-liners and the cast were all very good. It was nothing more than all right for me though.

At 8pm just as we were about to take the stage to our audience of six, Graeme turned to Victoria and said, "Can we not just cancel this shite?"

Our audience included Graeme's brother, who had turned up late and Jennifer and Simone who had come to see me. Thank goodness they did as they practically cheerled the laughter all throughout.

Jennifer managed to upstage us all by laughing so hard at one point that she smashed her head off the chair in front of her. Caroline on the lights was still laughing about that after the show ended.

The performance was fine, no big glitches or anything. We also appear to have a positive review om the Ed Fringe website. It's fair enough as people in the audience over the run have enjoyed it. It might have a lot of flaws, but it's not a complete laugh-free mess, as some critics may have you believe.

Still only 2 more shows to go.