Vaginal Eel
Wednesday 16th August
We went to see a play in the venue above ours. Staggered Spaces is a two hander about a couple who have split up but are discussing getting back together again. It's more interesting than it sounds. I hate to call things 'surreal', but this did have the odd surreal moment, with talking cheese sandwiches and fantasy sequences mixing in with the narravtive.
The two performers, both annoningly young were very good with Nadia (even the websiste doesn't seem to have her second name) in particular being exc ellent, providing a very natural performance, even when proceedings got a bit odd. There was some good physical stuff too, as well as a funny line about a vaginal eel, hence the title. I just liked it.
After that Graeme and I went to get some of Momma Cherri's cooking at the Pleasance Dome. You'll recognise Momma Cherri from her appearance on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. She has a show on (more about that later) but she is also providing all the food at the venue. She serves you herself and jokingly berated the guy assisting her for not giving Graeme a big enough portion. "You have to measure the portion to the size of the man! He's a big man, so he gets a big portion".
We then went to the Meadow Bar to see one of the many free shows on the Fringe. Kevin Shepherd's Comics Die in Hot Cars was part stand up part documentary. Kevin is a jobbing comedian from London, working the circuit for 8 years. He put a video camera in the front seat of his car and filmed the many comics he provided lifts to and from gigs.
I totally admire the fact that he tried something this ambitious, when he could just have told an hour's worth of material culled form his years in the business. It has a few funny moments in it, like Jimmy Carr commenting, "Thanks for the lift, but this car's a piece of shit". However a lot of it is comedians you don't know unless you read Chortle, laughing at their own jokes.
The premise 'behind the scenes of the jobbing comic' doesn't seem to provide enough insight or laughs for it to have been fully successful, but it made for a diverting hour. Maybe if he goes for a bit more of a comprehensive access all areas style next time it might be a winner. That said though, it was a free show and he did put a lot of work into it.
Tonight was the 9th performance of Trans-Canada Highway amd we had 20 folk thorugh the door. This included Fraser and the other guys from work and Viv Gee. As far as I was concerned the show was terrible. It fell very flat early on.
Normally from backstage I can tell from the opening monologue how the show is going to be received. If the early lines get laughs then it seems to go down okay. If there's no laughs then we're in for a long night.
A long night it was. Victoria thought it went okay, but Graeme and I thought it was very poor.
We went for a drink at the Hebrides. Victoria asked Graeme from work, if, as a Canadian, he liked it. "Aaaah, no," was Graeme's reply. "It had no sense of place". Graeme really isn't a guy to sit on the fence and I wouldn't have expected him to have been anything other than honest when asked about it.
After a few drinks we walked the mile or two to Tollcross to get JOhn's car. We then headed out towards Balerno, until after driving up a country road, John decided he'd gone too far in the wrong direction.
"This is maybe the wrong time to tell you guys this, but I've got night blindness". I appreciated them all coming out, especially when you consider they didn't expect to enjoy it.
In flatmate news we have someone interested, I just haven't met her as yet.
We went to see a play in the venue above ours. Staggered Spaces is a two hander about a couple who have split up but are discussing getting back together again. It's more interesting than it sounds. I hate to call things 'surreal', but this did have the odd surreal moment, with talking cheese sandwiches and fantasy sequences mixing in with the narravtive.
The two performers, both annoningly young were very good with Nadia (even the websiste doesn't seem to have her second name) in particular being exc ellent, providing a very natural performance, even when proceedings got a bit odd. There was some good physical stuff too, as well as a funny line about a vaginal eel, hence the title. I just liked it.
After that Graeme and I went to get some of Momma Cherri's cooking at the Pleasance Dome. You'll recognise Momma Cherri from her appearance on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. She has a show on (more about that later) but she is also providing all the food at the venue. She serves you herself and jokingly berated the guy assisting her for not giving Graeme a big enough portion. "You have to measure the portion to the size of the man! He's a big man, so he gets a big portion".
We then went to the Meadow Bar to see one of the many free shows on the Fringe. Kevin Shepherd's Comics Die in Hot Cars was part stand up part documentary. Kevin is a jobbing comedian from London, working the circuit for 8 years. He put a video camera in the front seat of his car and filmed the many comics he provided lifts to and from gigs.
I totally admire the fact that he tried something this ambitious, when he could just have told an hour's worth of material culled form his years in the business. It has a few funny moments in it, like Jimmy Carr commenting, "Thanks for the lift, but this car's a piece of shit". However a lot of it is comedians you don't know unless you read Chortle, laughing at their own jokes.
The premise 'behind the scenes of the jobbing comic' doesn't seem to provide enough insight or laughs for it to have been fully successful, but it made for a diverting hour. Maybe if he goes for a bit more of a comprehensive access all areas style next time it might be a winner. That said though, it was a free show and he did put a lot of work into it.
Tonight was the 9th performance of Trans-Canada Highway amd we had 20 folk thorugh the door. This included Fraser and the other guys from work and Viv Gee. As far as I was concerned the show was terrible. It fell very flat early on.
Normally from backstage I can tell from the opening monologue how the show is going to be received. If the early lines get laughs then it seems to go down okay. If there's no laughs then we're in for a long night.
A long night it was. Victoria thought it went okay, but Graeme and I thought it was very poor.
We went for a drink at the Hebrides. Victoria asked Graeme from work, if, as a Canadian, he liked it. "Aaaah, no," was Graeme's reply. "It had no sense of place". Graeme really isn't a guy to sit on the fence and I wouldn't have expected him to have been anything other than honest when asked about it.
After a few drinks we walked the mile or two to Tollcross to get JOhn's car. We then headed out towards Balerno, until after driving up a country road, John decided he'd gone too far in the wrong direction.
"This is maybe the wrong time to tell you guys this, but I've got night blindness". I appreciated them all coming out, especially when you consider they didn't expect to enjoy it.
In flatmate news we have someone interested, I just haven't met her as yet.
posted by Tom at Friday, August 18, 2006
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