Brian Ferguson’s diary
With the countdown on to the end of the festivals, it’s time to start handing out a few awards in this column.
Best flying visit to the festival must go to Spider-man himself after actor Tom Holland was spotted darting around the city.
The actor told his 2.2 million Twitter followers that he “laughed, ate, drank and slept like kings” during his visit to the city with brother Harry to see their stand-up dad Dominic Holland at the Voodoo Rooms speakeasy.
The 22-year-old star also thanks the Edinburgh Grand, the fancy schmancy new apartment complex on St Andrew Square, for an upgrade, which I’m told offered Spidey-style views of the city.
His dad’s blog on their visit revealed that their “collected best efforts” to be discreet about Spidey’s presence in the Voodoo Rooms didn’t quite go according to plan “with a knowing feeling amongst my audience with heads craning backwards to the two people who arrived late and are lurking at the back.”
Holland Snr, who is slumming it in a caravan park, admitted: “This is off-putting for me, on-stage and at work but understandable I suppose and a peril of having a well-known son.”
The family went on to dine at the neighbouring new Hawksmoor steakhouse – hailed as “magnificent” by the comedian, who also said
The world of Swell Mob, above; Tom Holland swings by, below
it was “a restaurant vegans would not approve of.”
If I had a gong for the Fringe show which instantly transports its audience to another world it would be heading in the direction of Flabbergast Theatre. It takes a few minutes to adjust from one shady underworld around George Square Gardens to another, in a dark and forbidding Edinburgh University basement. But the world created by The Swell Mob in their 1930s “taproom,” complete with
tarot card readers, carousing characters, bare-knuckle boxing, gambling, incense and flagons overflowing with ale, is the perfect antidote to the most commercialised quarter of the Fringe.
I’m still on a mission to find the best new venue of the Fringe, but streaking ahead after another accidental visit is Bob Slayer’s Spiegelyurt.
With the door wide open beside the Potterrow underpass, the man himself could be found holding court and ushering in passers-by in the middle of his show, despite their protestations of being en route to another venue. Half of the show we stumbled across saw him conducting regular conversations in the corner of the yurt with “the great comedy gods” and even announcing his retirement from stand-up.