THANK THE LIZARDS! EDINBURGH IS BACK
FRINGE STALWART SHARON LOUGHER IS THRILLED TO BE AMONG THE ROYAL MILE CROWDS AGAIN. BUT WITH NO GLOSSY PROGRAMME, WHERE DO YOU START?
SOMETIMES, all it takes is some space lizards. It’s the first weekend of the Edinburgh Fringe’s tiptoe-ing comeback, and I’m breathing a huge sigh of (reptilian) relief. In front of me are a bunch of University of Birmingham students breaking into impromptu song in the middle of a made-up space Western involving stolen oxygen tanks, those aforementioned face-licking critters, and some seriously dubious astrophysics. Blazing Spaceships is not quite Bouncy Castle Dracula (surely the most gloriously idiotic show ever seen at the Fringe), but it’ll do. It’s spirited, daft and slightly shambolic – and boy, have I missed the maelstrom of madness that is the world’s biggest arts festival.
But first, let’s rewind. I poked my head around the door of the Scottish
‘Lauren was joined on stage by her new anxiety dog: it was a state of the nation moment’
capital during August of 2020, and though the pragmatic side of me was inevitably on board with life-saving, bigger-picture lockdown rules, the lack of art broke my heart.
After 74 years, the show wasn’t going on, Edinburgh’s cobbles untroubled by enthusiastic flyerers coiled like a spring ready to thrust forth paper and good cheer. Not even the indestructible Arthur Smith could get his (outdoor) walking tour off the ground. It was actually possible to walk down the Royal Mile in a straight line. Imagine.
Its welcome return this year has been slow-burn. Without the time to assemble that massive colourful wodge of a festival programme (which usually has to cram in over 3,000 shows across more than 300 venues), bagging decent tickets for the gradual stream of name announcements has required watching the venue websites like they’re a Where’s Wally poster – every decent act being met with a yelp and a triumphant pounce. But selfishly, maybe this tantalising teaser trailer was a good thing. For the first time we had a teenage Fringe newbie in tow, whose last funny thing she saw was improvising comedy duo Middleditch & Schwartz on Netflix. At least this scaled-back, less corporate festival was a gentle, manageable way into her first rodeo – the Pixar short before the glorious masterpiece.
Unsurprisingly, her highlight was the lizard-loving Improvabunga crew, whose youth and cosmic silliness lifted us from our seats at the Bevan Theatre in the Surgeon’s Hall.
More grown-up delights, meanwhile, could be found at the 100-capacity Monkey Barrel basement, a venue that deserves plaudits for a passion and nimbleness that has kept it going for locals, students and staycationers during Covid while others had to keep their doors slammed shut.
There, Fern Brady’s highly promising work in progress of her latest show Autistic Bikini Queen was a refreshing blast of cynicism as it darted around observations on everything from Scottishness and the pandemic to the positive ways that her autism makes her an outlier. (For a comic, it’s a superpower, she asserts.)
Lauren Pattison’s more polished work in progress, on the other hand, revealed a comic transformed. The last time we saw this talented
performer, she had a Sarah Millicanesque spirit and lightness of touch. One pandemic later – during which she was dumped by her boyfriend, lost the job she loved, moved back in with her parents in Newcastle and had to work at Morrisons to pay the bills – she’s breathless, fragile and fascinating. In terms of Covid’s impact on the creative industries, the sight of her being joined on stage by her new anxiety dog was a state of the nation moment.
What else am I champing at the bit to see? The equally breathless Mark Watson and his preview of latest show This Can’t Be It. Last month he worried fans when he tweeted, ‘Sorry, but if you’ve ever enjoyed anything I’ve done, this would be a great time to tell me,’ Watson has had a tumultuous few years in his personal life even before the pandemic. Surely he’ll find a modicum of equilibrium back on stage at a festival he loves (this is his 21st Fringe), which will be a thrill to share.
And Joe Thomas, who’s proof that even when you’re a bona fide TV star, the festival still holds its allure. Before The Inbetweeners, Thomas cut his teeth at the Fringe with fellow Cambridge Footlights alumni Simon Bird and Jonny Sweet in various sketch guises.
Now the 37-year-old is flexing his stand-up muscles in a debut show exploring fame, childhood and his OCD. Are you sensing a theme?
Edinburgh 2021 is the festival of catharsis, and as we now stagger out of Covid blinking into the doublejabbed light, surely laughter is now the only medicine.