The Very Picture of Festival
Just past 7:00 tonight, as I was leaving work, there was a guy with a guitar standing in the alleyway behind the shop under a huge picnic table umbrella branded with Magners logos, singing Outkast's Hey Ya!, as it rained and rained away. My manager said to me, "THAT, Mel, is the very picture of the Edinburgh Festival." Then, I set off running across the city in my work uniform through the rain so as to make it on time to a free production of Doctor Faustus at the Edinburgh College of Art. I stopped off in the Frankenstein's bathroom for a quick wardrobe change, and it made me feel a little bit like a superhero.
After the play, which was good, mostly, Steph, Charlie, the Hitchhiker*, and I went to an Irish pub in the Grassmarket where we drank beer without having had dinner. While sitting in the bar, a man with false teeth approached us with a very persuasive "apparently, I'm supposed to come here and offer you tickets to my show. It's not very good." With a pitch like that, we of course, said yes, but first, we needed some dinner, and here is my Picture of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: powerwalking up the Grassmarket in the dark, in the rain, eating soggy pizza out of a box on our way to see an act which was inspired by and performed entirely with the aid of toilet roll. The D Brothers were mime-magicians whose act included all of the following at one point or another: me sitting in the audience wearing toilet paper around my shoulders like a sash, a Magritte style bowler on a hat stand draped in toilet roll, Charlotte on the stage wearing a toilet paper hat as they pumped cider out of her ear, and both magicians wearing outfits that turned them into puppets (one of which was a rabbit that parodied the very nature of magic acts!) which danced to crazy drum beats. I fucking love the Fringe.
*Last Thursday, Steph's brother was waiting for a bus into the city when he found a hitchhiker from London looking lost after having tumbled out of a Range Rover; on Thursday, we all had a delightfully drunken night out, and since Sunday this Hitchhiker has been living on our couch, working in a juice bar, making us dinner, and indulging me in semi-literary pursuits. He is now sitting across the room making Papier Maché statuettes to sell to tourists.
After the play, which was good, mostly, Steph, Charlie, the Hitchhiker*, and I went to an Irish pub in the Grassmarket where we drank beer without having had dinner. While sitting in the bar, a man with false teeth approached us with a very persuasive "apparently, I'm supposed to come here and offer you tickets to my show. It's not very good." With a pitch like that, we of course, said yes, but first, we needed some dinner, and here is my Picture of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: powerwalking up the Grassmarket in the dark, in the rain, eating soggy pizza out of a box on our way to see an act which was inspired by and performed entirely with the aid of toilet roll. The D Brothers were mime-magicians whose act included all of the following at one point or another: me sitting in the audience wearing toilet paper around my shoulders like a sash, a Magritte style bowler on a hat stand draped in toilet roll, Charlotte on the stage wearing a toilet paper hat as they pumped cider out of her ear, and both magicians wearing outfits that turned them into puppets (one of which was a rabbit that parodied the very nature of magic acts!) which danced to crazy drum beats. I fucking love the Fringe.
*Last Thursday, Steph's brother was waiting for a bus into the city when he found a hitchhiker from London looking lost after having tumbled out of a Range Rover; on Thursday, we all had a delightfully drunken night out, and since Sunday this Hitchhiker has been living on our couch, working in a juice bar, making us dinner, and indulging me in semi-literary pursuits. He is now sitting across the room making Papier Maché statuettes to sell to tourists.