Edinburgh 2008 - the shows

*we didn't actually see a show here, but I liked the pic!

This year, we had longer than ever in Edinburgh, but we didn’t try and kill ourselves by running from one show to another. We took time to eat (and shop). In fact our first show wasn’t a ‘show’ at all but the Vanity Fair Portraits photography exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. We’d intended to go and see the Tracey Emin exhibition, until we realised that it was at the Gallery of Modern Art, out of the centre, and we ditched the idea of the Impressionists, as it wasn’t going to match the Musee D’Orsay. ‘Vanity Fair’ was fabulous, but we didn’t really have time to do it justice, as we had to hail a taxi, and cross town to our first ‘proper’ show...

Potted Potter***
‘All 7 books in 70 minutes’ - Yes, I know! And there were a lot of kids in, but there were a lot of adults too, and some of the jokes were distinctly adult orientated. We played a fairly violent game of quidditch (we were Slytherin); I learned that book seven is really all about death, and camping.

Ha Ha Hamlet**
A bit of a mistake, we should have known by the title really. We are now wary of booking anything at the Gilded Balloon, having never seen anything good there. It was ‘energetic’, and they tried hard, and it wasn’t the worst show I’ve seen in Edinburgh.

Aeneas Faversham Forever*****
In contrast, this was brilliant. A spoof Victorian murder mystery, performed by the Penny Dreadfuls. Very skilled performances to a packed audience. And I got a ‘henchman of the month’ badge.

Old Rope**
Late night comedy cabaret, which we went to mainly for Rich Hall. He was excellent, and Richard Herring was also very funny. The female comic, though, wasn’t funny, just drunk.

Shakespeare for Breakfast****
Better than last year’s show. This time we had characters doing The Weakest Link and The Apprentice, which worked really well.

Simon Callow, 'A Festival Dickens'***
The longest show – it even had an interval – in the largest space. Simon Callow performing two stories from Dickens. He was very good, and his timing and pace was excellent. I did have a bit of a problem with material, though, which was Dickens at his most self indulgent. The child died, then the wife, and then the dog! But it pressed all the right buttons, and I cried – it felt a bit like the end of Blood Brothers!

Idiots of Ants****
Great fun. They have a real charm about them, and they’re clever. But they were in the tiniest of venues, Pleasance Beside, which was nothing more than a glorified portacabin. Some great sketches – ‘Wally’ at the Literary Festival, and the cockney ghosts being particular highlights.

So, overall, was it a vintage year? Possibly not, yet I’ve given shows better reviews than other years. Maybe, after 3 years, I’m already becoming a little jaded. The first year, it was all new, and the sheer excitement of being in the middle of all that creative energy was a thrill, last year was such a crazy hectic chase that made it all part of the fun. This year, the weather quite literally put a dampener on it, but also it is getting very expensive. Director Boy was right, you can’t really afford to take many risks when shows are getting on for £10 a shot. Maybe the trick is to go at the very start, when many shows are ‘two for one’, and hope to discover a few 'gems'. All that said, I know I’d miss my Edinburgh ‘fix’ if I didn’t have it.