The morning started in a panic, with a 7:45am alarm and a sudden realisation that my train from kings cross was at 9 not 9.30am... Fully flustered with the most unsuitable weekend bag, I ran up the road, before realising I had left the one thing Neil had repeatedly reminded me off the night before, that morning at 6am and in the follow up text... The phone charger.
Despite the back and forth I made it to the underground station by 8:05am in an absolute state. Credit where it's due, I managed to get up, get ready and get out within 20minutes! All aboard the jubilee, ready for a met line change at Wembley Park, where thank goodness the next train was an Aldgate all stations (frequent met line commuters, I know you'll appreciate the joy I felt at this moment).
I was seated in my frontwards facing, window and table seat by 8:45am when I decided to get back into my book (The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - worth a read, maybe a tad preachy for most), only to find that my kindle was flashing low battery (another reason books are better than electronics). With a four hour journey ahead of me, further panic set in, for me to remember the thing I had forgotten in the morning, the phone charger, which conveniently doubled up as a kindle charger.
I spent my four hour journey feeling like a hero, whilst also overhearing the craziest conversations ("her ring didn't look too big as she's such a big girl") and colouring in my new adult colouring book!
After 4 hours and an additional 20 minute delay, I arrived at Edinburgh Waverley Station at 2pm where conveniently it was raining so heavily that getting into a cab took 25 minutes and I ended up arriving at our Air BnB accommodation at 3pm.
Having booked the train tickets up a couple of months before, we'd only settled on accommodation a few weeks prior. With all hotels hiking prices up to a ridiculous high, we thought we'd look into the ever growing hype that is Air BnB. The host David, was really nice, showed me the ins and outs of the house and pretty much left me to my own devices. We had our own room and bathroom, access to the kitchen and living room, and were welcome in and out as we pleased.
At 6ish Neil arrived, post work and we head off towards the Royal Mile to meet some friends for dinner. We found a cute little Turkish restaurant called Pera, which was also a BYOB. The food, whilst a bit of a wait, was well worth it, not sure if that had anything to do with the half bottle of red wine we had polished off prior!
Following dinner Neil and I hear off to our first show of the weekend.
Reginald D Hunter- Bitchproof
Having never seen any of his earlier work, I found Reginald pretty entertaining, although I must admit he came across a little scattered and rather nervous. His jokes at times were a little confusing and often didn't lead on from one to another but the crux of the jokes were funny.
He played up to the race card, using it in his humour and if you have seen any of his previous work you'll know what I mean. He was funny, more so for me than for Neil, but all in all, a good one to get us started.
Tats Nkonzo - the African with Wifi
We had some time between our shows so decided to fit another in, and had an option of three. The one that appealed the most was of this South African comedian.
He had some refreshingly new material, which had the audience in tears, helped along with his incredible singing voice, used at all the right times. His 50 minute show flew by, and the audience left wanting more. I predict big things for him, and would definitely recommend going to see him if an opportunity arose.
Lee Nelson - Suited & Booted
This is the guy famous for the "Sept Blatter - Make It Rain" moment. In all honestly we walked in not expecting too much from him. I figured him a one trick pony, but I will eat my words as he was shockingly good! He kept us fully entertained and really worked the crowd. Without giving too much away he played up to his "chavvy" character role and had me chuckling to myself for the whole hour.
Having seen three shows that evening, we called it a night and head back to our flat. We had the whole next day to wander and pick up tickets and that's exactly what we did.
The following morning, we decided to start the day with a full Scottish breakfast at Whiski on the Royal Mile. This is a multi-award winning bar, stocking Edinburgh's widest (and most pricy) whiskies. We stuck to breaskfast foods and drinks, which set us up nicely for the day.
Our first show of the day was "Captain Morgan" by the Tap Tap Group. This was a group of three men, who used amazing talent to tell a story of 12 different characters, and portraying them so well that it was easily distinctive when they jumped from one character to the next. They shared a very funny tale of a pirate on his hunt for treasure with no props and just a violin and accordion to help set the scene. Having seen a few things like this previously, I couldn't withhold my amazement at just how good this trio were, and it puzzles me as to why they aren't more famous.
Get Your Own Back Live
For all you 90's kids out there, you will remember this as the programme where kids get adults gunged. Dave Benson Phillips (the host back then on the TV, and in person here) brought back all the hype from the nostalgic programme. They set it up so that there were two teams, improvs vs stand up, who had to complete a range of tasks and win points. The team with most points got to pull the leaver to gunge the losing team. It was good fun, a trip down memory lane, and some light afternoon entertainment.
After this we had a bit of time before our next show so we wandered around, sat in the BBC pop up for a bit and then found some food in the food stalls (savoury crepes were amazing, huge queue though). Then we grabbed a drink and made our way to the Pleasance Dome.
Rob Beckett - Mouth From the South
We needed a real game plan for this one, as as soon as it was over we needed to run out and jump in a cab to get over to the Assembly Rooms for our grande finale. So we planned on getting a high table on the side, so the escape route was clear.
Rob Beckett came on and had me in stitches within seconds. He really played to the audience, evaluated everyone around him, worked it into his material but without making anyone feel too embarrassed. His humour really got me, as he focused on things that were comedic in his upbringing, which was in London in the 90's and therefore pretty relatable for me. There were so many brilliant jokes, I couldn't believe I hadn't heard them before, and his presence and enthusiasm made it all that much better! This probably went down as my favourite show of the weekend.
Post show, we jumped out and ran out of there, not before being met by Rob at the bottom of the stairs who shook both mine and Neil's hands. In all the excitement, we ran out, hailed a cab and were in the line for our next show all in 10 minutes.
Tom Stade - You're Welcome
Our last show of the weekend was the world famous Canadian Tom Stade. This was by far the biggest show we had been to, with around 400 people in the audience, and the most beautiful venue.
Tom came promptly on stage and kicked of with the F word as a filler for every pause he took. As most comedians do, he used his real life experiences i.e. Moving to Scotland from Canada as a base for a lot his jokes, which just made it all that more funnier. He spoke to people within the audience as if he was just having a conversation with them and really developed a good raptor. As a comedy veteran, I was genuinely impressed by his enthusiasm for his job and could see why he was a sold out act for Fringe 2015.
As we were leaving after the show we see Tom Stade, who willingly came up to us and took a selfie. Just him hanging around and taking pictures with his audience added to his likability factor and showed his genuine appreciation of the people who came out to see him.
Everything was relatively central and we used this as an opportunity to walk around the city. It didn't take us long to find our routes around Edinburgh particularly from the Pleasance Courtyard to the Royal Mile and all the places in between.
After such a busy and entertaining day (and 6 hours of walking, that's over 25,000 steps according to my fitness app), we head back to our Air BnB and fell fast asleep, ready to return home the next day. Waking up in our own time, we packed and left the flat. Just popping the keys through the letterbox and off we went.
As we're fancy married people now, we did the poshest thing ever and met our friends for some brunch. A play by play comparison of the shows we had seen and our own critiques followed, before we parted ways, and back to Edinburgh Waverly we went. With anther four hour journey ahead of me, I turned back to my colouring book and was back at Kings X in no time.
Just as an end note, I've never really been that into standup comedy before, and whilst open to what we were coming to see, had no expectations. I'm pleased to say my Fringe Festival experience has been second to none, and I have officially been converted into a standup fan. In fact, we've already discussed coming back next year for a few more days and a few more shows.
