First and foremost however, we had to be careful with our transport & accommodation costs as we weren't earning money yet. Edinburgh was not cheap to stay in that time of year - the Fringe is literally the high season for tourists, coupling on to the Edinburgh Tattoo season. Sasha worked on a place to stay for us and the wider group, and with effort found us a 6-bed hostel room we could have to ourselves in a hostel not too far a walk from the action. I looked into transport for Sasha and I - flying direct to Edinburgh was too costly, so how else to get there? Oddly enough, it worked out cheapest to fly to and from London and travel over land. Bus times on the way up didn't work, but the train did - but it was cheapest to catch an overnight bus on the way back, which would also save us an extra night's accommodation. We'd also get a full day in London, not that we had any idea what to do with it - we did look to see if we could get a full day somewhere like Glasgow or elsewhere but a half-day at best (plus a greater cost) was all that was possible. So we had our trip, we booked it and waited for it to roll around.
Travelling There
We took the Stansted Express train into London's Liverpool Street station, changed to the tube to get to Euston (I had forgotten how packed the tube gets) and once there entered the First Class lounge. Most trains to Edinburgh leave from Kings Cross, but by taking a train from Euston (which takes an hour longer) we could get 1st Class tickets for much the same price as 2nd Class from Kings Cross. Not only were we able to have free food & drink in the lounge while we waited for departure, but we got it in the train too. The journey was 5 1/2 hours, and the weather got progressively worse the closer we got to Scotland - we disembarked into rain, but luckily no wind. Or snow.
The Fringe
Battle Acts
A free show, Sasha had seen this one last year and wanted to see them again. Basically it was a group of 5 improv artists, of 2 competing teams of 2 with 1 being the adjudicator. The format was apparently different than the previous year and the venue smaller - a pity as the crowd was huge, but we got seats - but very entertaining to see the people think on their feet. Blue team was the funniest overall, but Red team managed to score the points whee it counted and won.
Laughing at Photographs I have Taken
A free show, sounded promising. But the title was a bit of a misnomer - it was basically a Powerpoint Presentation of interesting, curious or amusing photos the comedian had taken but none of them were laugh-out-loud funny and nor did the comedian ever laugh at his photos. I found it interesting from a photography and curiousity level but most of the rest of our group didn't like it - some of them walking out fairly early on. The "ad breaks" with hand-written advertising was a bit try-hard too and didn't elicit any laughs. A pity because there was potential there, but it didn't feel well executed and seemed almost too much like a "death-by-powerpoint" showing of someones holiday snaps.
Auditions
The basic premise - a director holding auditions for parts in his play to be performed at the Fringe. A free show in a packed room where we again got seats, the first "half" was quite entertaining. The second half was the actual performance of the show, which to me dragged on too long and lost a lot of the comedic hilarity the first half had. In all, entertaining.
Sophie Hagen: Shimmer Shatter
We lined up for some time to get in this free show, and again we got seats while others had to stand. We'd been recommended this one, and it did not disappoint- the comedian (comedianess?) was very funny, giving us a hilarious narrative which was essentially about some of her dating exploits but she kept the story tight and brought it always back to the key message and themes she started out with. A very good show!
Sh*tfaced Showtime
This was a paid show, but we got it cheaper thanks to a group discount. We'd originally intended to see Sh*tfaced Shakespeare, but that was sold out. However this did not disappoint! The premise - the cast acts out a theatre play (in our case that night, The Pirates of Penzance) but one of the cast has been got intentionally drunk. Wasn't hard to work out who in the cast that was fairly quickly, as they forgot lines or dance moves, or broke away from the script and as you could imagine - hilarity ensues. I'd never seen Pirates of Penzance before so that was new to me, but it was certainly a highlight of the fringe for me.
Erin McGathy: Love you Loudly
A ticketed-but-if-theres-enough-spaces-show-up-and-get-in-free show, the comedianess took us on a narrative which was essentially about some of her dating exploits. Sound familiar? Yes, the premise seemed awfully familiar to Sophie Hagen's show - except she wasn't as funny unfortunately. One interesting thing she did say in her show is one of her suitors didn't believe in female standup comedians because they thought they could only be funny if they talked about their relationships. An interesting proposition, considering that the two solo female comedian acts we had seen so far including the one we were watching were doing just that. She also didn't tie her story back to a main narrative very well, which meant it felt like we'd just heard about her relationships for no specific reason. Potential there for sure, but perhaps it didn't seem as good because of Sophies show.
Goose: Hydrobezerker
We were looking for something to see for a last show of the day before everyone was going their separate ways when someone came up to us peddling this show. It was a paid show, but tickets were half price and for listening to the guy promoting the show he'd play any tune on his little air-operated keyboard. "Pirates of the Caribbean" was Kyle's challenging and unlikely response. But the guy played it with little hesitation, and we thought if the supporters touting the show are that good, how good will the main act be?
Very good in fact - Goose was high energy, hilarious and his show partly interactive. He was a lone comedian with a 7-piece band behind him, but with someone acting out various parts of this girl he was trying to find and who the main narrative of his show was about. But that was really a peripheral story and a lot of the comedy in the show was completely unrelated. The few interactive features were very well done - one which sticks in my mind is he dragged a random audience member to the front, told the audience he was part of the show and they were going to read out the lines they'd memorized from the script. Of course this guy had no clue and did his best to go along with it, only for Goose to "stuff up" and ask to see the script. Up on the screen came a transcript showing exactly what the random guy had said - someone had been typing it up ready to go as the guy said what he said. How clever is that? In the end, the girl that he was looking for "showed up" at the end of the show so it all had a happy ending but one thing I noticed was the band, who are there for every show were listening intently to some of the jokes and laughing - although it flowed like it was in every performance, clearly they hadn't heard it before which tells you something of the seamlessness of Goose's presentation style. This personally was my favourite show of the lot - very narrowly beating out Shitfaced Showtime and third favouite was Sophie Dutch. Would happily pay to see Goose again.
Travelling Back
Tired and hungry, we got breakfast at Victoria station before making our way to a corner of Hyde Park to just chill out in for a while and figure out what we might do in London. We ended up visiting the London Transport Museum to see their Design exhibitions - after all that iconic London Underground logo is basically the logo of London and its interesting to see how its evolved over time. We were going to get a combo ticket which also included a trip on the Thames Clipper riverboat but apparently you could only get that online so we didn't bother with the riverboat.
Later on we made our way to Stansted Airport, got our visa check, passed through security and got ourselves some dinner to eat on the Ryanair flight. Lunch had been a good old £3 Tesco meal deal, and dinner was Sushi (might have forgotten to mention to most that I recently tried Sushi again and I like it now). The Ryanair flight back was easy, as was border formalities at Schoenefeld - I had gotten an exit stamp upon leaving Germany but Sasha hadn't, and the guy looking st my passport looked a bit confused about it but at the end asked if I wanted a stamp "but you don't need one". "Yes please" - getting stamps in my passport helps show where I've been! A trek across Berlin by S-bahn and Tram, we were home and journey over.
Summing Up
What I found most interesting though was the London aspect. It all just seemed familiar, and in some respects like coming back home rather than going somewhere. All those familiar landmarks, the red buses, the tube - all just seemed like normal really, although I had forgotten how to navigate the rabbit warren that is the tube, how packed it gets and also that you don't need to press the button on the tube doors - they open anyway! It was interesting to note how used I've become to Euro money though and how bland and play-like the UK currency is in comparison. London's buildings and infrastructure has a whole work-grimed look to it - soot on the buildings, stained station rooves, like the city is too busy to stop and take the time to make it look pretty unlike almost every other city. Edinburgh is the same though, all its stone buildings covered in soot and grime. It adds atmosphere, but you simply can't mistake it for being anywhere but the UK. Strangely though, it didn't seem odd or even a relief to be completely surrounded by people speaking English or everything being written in English - perhaps indicative of the fact Berlin has a lot of English language too or that I'm used to seeing and hearing German, even if I don"t understand German yet (or speak it). I think on the whole, I hadn't been away from the UK long enough - it didn't feel special or "oh wow we're back" particularly in London, it just felt like getting around London normally just as we did when we lived there. Oh and one last thing - this was the first proper trip where I didn't take my DSLR camera along with me. There wasn't going to be any point as photo opportunities warranting its use would be few if any, and it was surprising just how much space in my bag not having the camera and its peripherals freed up! The iPhone and the GoPro filled the gap, but even then both didn't get much use.
So I can say I've done a proper Fringe in Edinburgh, but I absolutely must go back there properly at a non-Fringe time and see the city!