Ralph Oswick: Queen of Sand among highlights from the Fringe

Further to my recent description of some of the weird and wonderful cultural offerings available at the up and coming Edinburgh Fringe, I can now reveal some of my choices. Very astutely, I’ve booked tickets for my friend Mervyn’s show, which is basically a cheat’s guide to the Fringe. Mervyn has a whole team of show spotters who select a different set of highlights every day for him to present. Thus talented but possibly otherwise overlooked performers can briefly showcase their wares and fakes like me can claim to have seen any amount of productions, and indeed opinionate expansively in many a late night hostelry on their merits. Other people seem to have the same idea. Mervyn’s presentations are always totally sold out and have been so for nearly 30 years. Another interesting performance that has caught my eye is that presented by one Irina Titova, Queen of Sand. I’ve no idea if this lady’s name is real or a cheeky nod to seaside postcard humour. Anyway, Ms T recounts the story of Around the World in Eighty Days whilst illustrating it with complex pictures created live in sand on a light box. These images are projected onto a screen. Sounds fascinating and if it’s any good we might try to bring it to Bath for next year’s Comedy Festival, after all not everything has to be cutting edge stand-up. Funny way to make a living though, isn’t it, drawing in sand? I wonder if her mum, like mine, despite joining in the wild applause after my performances and proudly saving all my postcards from exotic destinations in a huge scrap book still persisted in asking me if I ever intended to get a proper job. I suppose seeing her middleaged son wandering the streets wearing a flowerpot on his head (which for many years was indeed my main occupation) could engender a modicum of maternal disappointment! Mind, being a flowerpot for the Natural Theatre Company could be hard work. The organisers of a corporate event in Rome had us posing around for so long we had flat noses for hours afterwards. In Australia I fell down a manhole at the World Expo preview day. I hadn’t even attempted to extricate myself before the event’s union rep rushed up and asked if I wanted to sue the management. Help me out of this hole, mate, and then I’ll think about it was the mumbled response from inside my plastic pot. And then there’s always some stupid twerp who thinks it funny to whack you round the head, usually accompanied by the highly original enquiry as to whether you are Bill or Ben. Annoyingly people worldwide find this hilarious. I mean, when was the last time the Flowerpot Men were on telly in Turkmenistan? I suppose the only hazard for a sand painter is dry skin. I imagine scraping the granules around thrice daily for four weeks would play hell on one’s cuticles. She must get through litres of E45 cream. Or maybe she wears gloves? I’ll report back. Ralph Oswick was artistic director of Natural Theatre for 45 years and is now an active patron of Bath Comedy Festival