After I got into Edinburgh I went to the Stand to meet Alison and Peter Flanagan. We had some nice pasta and aubergine and I drank two glasses of wine, which was seemingly too much wine. Then me and Alison and Giles [Brody] worked on our shows in our nice flat.
I woke up with a cartoonish hangover, then ate one of Giles’s bagels [don’t tell Giles] and went to get our flyers. They’re based on potato prints Simon Mulholland [Alison’s BF and my FM [Flatmate]] made last year. Someone I fliered today asked if our fliers were printed on potato and thought she was very astute, but then I realised she was just being xenophobic.
Our venue is downstairs in a big bar called the Frankenstein, or to give it it’s proper name, Frankenstein’s Pub. Frankenstein is actually the owner’s name. The show on before us was a guy doing Woody Allen jokes from the 1960’s, he totally looked a good bit like Woody Allen! There was a nice little crowd in for our show and it was fun! I talked to some German people in the crowd who were studying English and obviously wanted a bit of a challenge, and thus come to the fast-talking heavy-accent show ft. CToole & Spitzer.
After the show we meet up with our good buddy Stephen Colfer, who’s doing a sketch show/play Chaos Theory. He’s been here all month and is starting to get a glazed look in his eyes.
We almost went on a ferris wheel but it was too expensive for our taste so I just took a photo from below and told the guys I’d paint in the frame of the ferris car so it’d look the same.
Stephen’s show was in the Half Price Hut today so we popped over for him to, as Alison would say, ‘see his name in lights’. Then we had a brocoli stir fry in the flat.
I went to see John-Luke Roberts’ show Stdad Up after dinner. His show last year was my second favourite fringe show of all time. He did this thing that involved lemons and Nine Inch Nails that was right up my alley. I was pretty thirsty when I went in but I figured I’d survive. And then, as if by comic-to-comic psychic communication, he gave me a glass of water during the show. I was so pleased with myself that I forgot [until just now, when I was beginning to recount what happened] that he had spat water into that glass from a distance quite a number of times. I wonder would I still have drank it all if I’d remembered that. Hmm.
The shows really lit a fire under me, and made me want to be not only a better comedian, but a greater comedian. Here are some quotes about the show for JL to use if he is ever stuck for quotes: ‘Wow fantastic good!’ ‘I enjoyed that, and I have a medical condition that means I have no seratonin, ever!’ ‘Best show I’ve seen all Fringe*’
Then I got a spicy cheese pasty. Then I went to see Sam Simmons and he exploded some lettuces. The colour palatte of his show was faaaaantasic. It was all white with some green things, like plants and lettuce remains. The Underbelly’s livery is purple too, so it complimented that very well. I love Sam Simmons. He had a great joke about skeletons.
When I came home [having another cheeky spicy cheese pasty on the way] [and a double potato one, I can’t lie] and Colin, Giles, Peter, and Alison were watching Unfriended which is a facebook movie, like The Social Network, except this one is about what it’d be like if ghosts had facebook. Spooky stuff!
*No exaggeration here, as it was the first show I saw this year
PS the wifi is a bit dodgy in the flat so I may not be able to update this blog as frequently as I’d like, but I’ll do my best!
Currently listening to: Skelocrats The Complete Skelocrats
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Conor O’Toole & Alison Spittle’s show runs every day until August 24 at 2pm in the Frankenstien Pub on George IV Bridge.
Conor O’Toole: A Retrospective 1995-2015 will be on September 14-20 in the Tiger Dublin Fringe