Entertain me please

AND SO IT BEGINS

If you've never been to Edinburgh, indeed if you've never been in the Athens of the North during Festival time, then the following isn't going to mean a lot to you so I'd turn over to another channel immediately.  There must be something better on than this rubbish.

We arrived after midnight so today is most certainly the first of our Fringe 2013.  There is much more to come.  It was planned as a day of rest after the journey and our first pre-booked tickets are for tomorrow and the queen of middle aged comedy, Jenny Eclaire.  But it would seem churlish not to venture up into the city for a brief visit and check out the atmosphere.  So I walked up the hill whilst Barbara took the bus.

Which immediately makes me sound antisocial.  Nonsense.  I'm just mean.  If I walk it saves £1.50 (hey, we're pensioners....) and I can pretend I'm getting fit.  Anyway, she had important things to do while I was ready to leave (fried egg sandwiches rate high in importance in our household).  

So we met up at the Lothian Buses office of Waverley Bridge.  Yes, I know this sounds just like a scene from Casablanca, but there was practical motive for this romantic assignation.  Bus passes.  I think Byron once wrote some lines on the subject.

And so we made our lovers' tryst and had our photos taken for our ridacards (I now think I may have been mistaken about Byron - perhaps it was James Blunt?).  The Fringe is all about merriment, entertainment and the search for meaning in life.  You may wonder how two bus passes can encompass such noble goals, but the depths were indeed plumbed.  You know those Greek masks reflecting comedy and tragedy?  That's our photo ids.  I daren't say any more, but I'm the comedy one.

And so up to the hub of Fringe life, the High Street, where if you aren't a performer you wonder how you there was space for you to be there.  And, on cue, my first sighting of the ubiquitous fire-eating, unicyling juggler.  In Edinburgh, in August?  Yawns all round.

There was also a purpose to this journey and a visit to the main Fringe office produced a three foot run of tickets, a lizard tail of artists and venues to occupy our time in coming days.  But that was but a brief interlude in circumnavigating the hordes.  Along the way was a helmeted man with a dinosaur tail; a Japanese troupe of musicians dressed from a fire sale in TK Maxx; an American guitarist who appeared to have at least sixteen fingers; a country music fiddler/one man band with the controls of his drum gaffer taped to his right foot; and a kilted gent propelled by a furious zimmer frame.  A fairly typical sample of Fringe fare really.  So far so normal.

But there was a shock.  I went from Cockburn Street to George IV Bridge (Google it if you've no idea what I'm on about), passed countless acts, and not one flier was thrust into my mitts.  Not one.  Que?

It will change.  There is an early days atmosphere, a sense of youthful optimism and no hint of the stench of failure.  None of the many performers present have yet suffered ten nights of single figure audiences.  Yet. Their dreams remain intact.  There is hope and enthusiasm in abundance, they are friendly and accommodating, they are looking at a glorious run ahead of them as word of their triumph ("triumph") spreads like botulism though the masses.  How times will change.

I await the coming day, not so far off now, when those same faces will approach me with a manic hint of desperation, a desire to please, debilitate, and kidnap combined in a sly glance, the need to relieve themselves of those tiny bits of paper and cardboard that define their future.  There's no better time to be a potential audience member....

We did take in a show.  We had to make a start somewhere and there was something in the Free Festival starting in less than ten minutes.

Forget the cynicism.  There is no substitute for live entertainment, even if not of the highest quality.  We so easily become blasé about the way in which we interact with performers when they are delivered to us through a glass screen.  But these are real human beings, doing their best to present themselves, through comedy, music, drama or whatever medium, to the people who have come to watch.  This is real communication, none of that electronic nonsense.

So we found ourselves watching Pam Ford in a show called Happy In My Skin.  And it was OK.  Not brilliant, not awful, but good enough to make me feel I'm glad we made the effort to go.   It was, by and large, about her life, and how various people along the way had made her feel bad about the person she appeared to be.  So there was a moral of sorts.  Value yourself for the good bits of who you are, not for how other people see you.  (I'm old enough, indeed a lot older than Pam, to have figured that one out some time ago, but it's good to seeing others do so and spread the word.)  There were laughs.  She was likeable.  We had fun.  And that's enough.  It doesn't have to be constantly hilarious, or philosophically earth shattering.  It just needs to be human to human contact, a rare enough thing at times.  That's what we're here for.  And that was a good beginning.

(If you are coming to the Fringe Pam's on at Espionage and is worth an hour of your time.)

Only three weeks to go....