So here’s a synopsis of what happened over the rest of my time at the Edinburgh festival:
The old guy singing about the past who was on before our show kept running over and it was annoying! He even collected money off the audience that had come in to see me and Alison’s show who instead had to watch the end of his. -100 fringe points from that guy.
I saw a dog with a flyer in his mouth who looked really excited and who I felt, was walking with purpose.
We saw one of those awful minion guys and Alison wanted to get a photo with it. I didn’t want her to give it any money, so we took a shot from a distance and took off. Besides, we were in a rush to see Simon Munnery. I accidentally left my phone in the Stand for the second time at Munnery’s show. Luckily I had no UK data so the staff couldn’t send tweets out, as I fear they would’ve destroyed my online profile as a cool, collected guy.
I saw Tom Parry’s show [and penis]. It was excellent [I’m talking about the show, I am totally unqualified to cast judgement on penises].
I introduced Giles to the pasty place. I think I ate every kind of vegetarian pie or roll they had in the place by the end of the week. Which is more pies and rolls than you’d expect.
We did a show in an Irish bar for a few nights, which was intermittently really fun or really grim.
We met some of Alison’s buddies from Westmeath and they bought us more pints than is reasonable to expect from anyone, except maybe if that person had previously stolen your wallet, cuckolded you, or killed one of your family members. I do not believe that was the case with these lovely people.
Weird socket placement.
I saw a car stop in traffic and shout at a parking attendant. The parking attendant had far more tattoos than any person who wears a uniform in Ireland. The person in the car tried to get his attention, but then didn’t seem to care once he could drive his car again. I guess he was technically parked for a couple of seconds. Hmm.
I got a icecream in a tub with a plastic protective seal around the top so that it wouldn’t spill. But I’m a god damn adult with some self confidence and I don’t need help to not spill icecream, so I took it off. Then the wind blew it out of my pocket and I had to chase it around St Andrew’s Square for ages. I almost caught it without loss of dignity by walking up to it, but ultimately I had to run a bit. Still didn’t spill my icecream though.
I did the Best of Irish showcase in the Stand, which was fun, although I’m not the most Irish comedian on the go. I should write some jokes about coddle and famine roads, I bet that’d make me more popular.
I was also playing the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society’s last show that day. They specialise in more off-the-wall stand up, so I decided to do a live version of episode one of Conor O’Toole’s World of the Animal Kingdom. I recut it the night before to get rid of the sound and the intro titles and I was ready to go! Until I found out an hour before the show that Colin’s projector only accepted .MP4 files and my film was in .AVI! Also, I didn’t bring a USB stick to play the film off! So I sat outside the venue furiously re-exporting the film in the hopes that I could find someone with a USB stick inside. Also I really should’ve sat down and properly learnt the script of COTWOTAK e01 at some point.
Surprisingly few people have USB sticks on them these days, but luckily Rose Matafeo was there to save the day, and it all came together and no one was any the wiser and I was totes professional on the show and did all talking about birds properly. It was probably the most fun gig I had in Edinburgh [not counting the Glasgow one, because that was in Glasgow].
Joz Norris did an impression of a YouTube video of ‘I’m on Fire’ by Bruce Springsteen where the video and audio have gone slightly out of sync, which was incredible. Joe Lycett performed as a character called Nigella Farage, who was very critical about immigration whilst going through some recipes.
Me and Alison started going on stage together instead of one-at-a-time, which was really fun, and allowed us to muck around a bunch more. After the show on Friday we went to a charity shop and Alison bought a load of badges that said stuff like “Industrial Chemicals Roadshow ’94” and stuff like that. She got me a sweet “Union Canal” badge. Unions and canals; two great things we humans made, hurray for us.
I hosted the New York All Star Comedy showcase again that day, which featured two Irish comics, a South African, a Belgian, and a guy from Massachusetts. We may not have been New Yorkers, we may not have been All Stars, but we were definitely all comedians. THAT, no one can deny.
I dropped back Rose’s USB stick [which I still have the top for, oops. Would it be weird to offer to post it to New Zealand? Is that reasonable or unreasonable?] at her show that she was doing with Guy Montgomery, who I know from the Worst Idea of All Time podcast. On the show Guy and his friend would watch Grown Ups 2 every week and review it. Me and Simon watched it recently. I think they’re doing Sex in the City 2 this year.
I ate some bangers and mash with Alison, although they took ages to make the mash and Alison had to run to a gig which was a shame.
Giles showed us the 2006 OJ Simpson sketch show Juiced one night. It was awful, and the audio was of very bad quality, which made it all the more disquieting.
I went to see Mark Dean Quinn, who was doing a show about trust. I ordered a Iron Bru in the bar of his venue, and they asked if I wanted a can or if I wanted draft. They had Iron Bru on draft. Of course I got a pint. Then at the show we all got ice lollies, and I was seriously buzzing from all the sugar during the sad bit of the show near the end.
I got a severely discounted ploughman’s pickle sandwich before I went to see Sarah Kendall. I am still alive, and all the richer for it.
Some other stuff happened, including a four hour house cleaning binge that almost made me miss my flight. But I survived and that’s a good thing.
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Conor O’Toole: A Retrospective 1995-2015 will be on September 14-20 in the Tiger Dublin Fringe