Friday 10 September 2010

Fringe Owl's Pick of the Fringe


... but enough of my opinion on the Fringe, what did Fringe Owl think?

I found Hans Teuween edgy and brilliant but Fringe Owl didn't think he was edgy enough, and spent a long time afterwards talking about how there was a lack of owl-based material. To be honest he had this problem with a lot of comedians.

He disliked my other favourite acts of the Fringe - The Boy With Tape on His Face, Jeremy Lion, Terry Alderton and Daniel Kitson. He thought TBWTOHF was taking the mickey out of his toupee adhesive (yes, I have to let you know that the hair in the photo is not his hair, although he will HATE me for publishing that). He didn't like the crow puppet in Jeremy Lion, thinking that it was stealing his thunder. He spent a lot of the Terry Alderton gig wanting to poo on Terry's shiny head, but thankfully the low ceiling and the speed with which Alderton moves about the stage meant the wily comic remained unsoiled throughout. As for Kitson, we had the following conversation:

TH - "Fringe Owl, don't you think it's brilliant that a comedian noted for his whimsical semi-serious one man shows can return to the gladiatorial arena of stand-up with such brilliant effect, as witnessed by his laugh-out-loud compere-ing the Invisible Dot by the Sea gig?"

FO - "Sorry, I just zoned out there for a minute, what did you say?"

TH - "Never mind."

Fringe Owl also liked Doctor Brown, mostly because there was a lot of food thrown about, so he went in between the audiences legs, gorging himself on olives and bran flakes. "That is what comedy is all about," he said just after the gig, although within 30 minutes he was suffering from excruciating indigestion. Serves him right.

I went to see Frisky and Mannish twice, but Fringe Owl went three times, to try and steal the shiny beads off of Mannish's jacket. I told him he wasn't a magpie, but he responded with "Don't tell me what kind of bird I am," and left the flat without putting his hairpiece straight. I didn't bring it up again.

One afternoon Fringe Owl was still in bed after a very late night mousing, and I happened upon Pip Utton in the Pleasance courtyard. I told him I had really enjoyed the brief bit of his one-man Charles Dickens show I had seen when we shared the bill with him at Pick of the Fringe. I told him of my plans to do a sci-fi adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit ("Astro-Chuzzlewit") at next year's fringe and asked if he would like to cameo in it as the great author, just a few minutes to express his approval of the adaptation from beyond the grave and so on, and he said he'd love to.

(Unlike a lot of the stuff about the fictional owl with the hairpiece, the above is actually true).

Haven't got time to post the rest but Fringe Owl is going to lend a hand by sorting out the relevant hyperlinks to all the acts named above, while I clean the kitchen. Thanks Fringe Owl.

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