Exploring Edinburgh (and its Fringe Festival)

Edinburgh made a great first impression – we stepped out into this beautiful city on a lovely sunny day.

A few of our friends are either living in Edinburgh or were visiting while we were there (the new London?) so we had our biggest Kiwi catch up yet. So many people have been generous enough to have us stay with them along the way, even with really limited space! Thanks to Kirsten, Louise and Andrew in Edinburgh.

It was also lovely to see Alice and Elf who were visiting Edinburgh at the same time. We explored the Fringe festival and the city with them, going to Crammond Island, the Botanic Gardens, climbing Arthur’s Seat and doing a walking tour.

Edinburgh was buzzing with all the activity from the Fringe. It was heaps of fun just to walk around the streets checking out the street performers, people dressed up to promote their shows and the many Fringe venues. There are around 2,800 performances on offer at the month long festival. There is so much on, at any time of day or night, that you are constantly coming across shows without even trying.

We saw 11-and-a-half shows in our six days here (more on the half show later). Most of these were part of the Free Fringe – a subset of shows that have a donations bucket rather than paid tickets. With so much on, shows take place in all sorts of venues. The very first show we went to was on the top floor of a double decker bus (although unfortunately it was stationary). It was funny watching tall comedians try to stand in the cramped space.

As with all Fringe festivals, the quality can be variable. While there were a couple of duds, on the whole we enjoyed most of the performances. One night we saw a great Australian soul singer, John McNamara. We were the closest people to Australians in the audience, so he dedicated a version of “Land down under” to us.

The majority of the festival is stand-up and sketch comedy. We really enjoyed a sketch show by Ladies and Gentlemen. Another comedy highlight was Jollyboat – a couple of brothers performing musical comedy. They sang a pirate pop medley (“I kissed a gull and I liked it”) and a love song made up entirely of puns from the computer keyboard, complete with flashcards (“And I want to [1, 2] … I want to restart [1, 2 CTRL-ALT-DEL]).

On the more serious side, we saw a new play called Sealand. Sealand is a real-life self-proclaimed micronation inhabiting an old WWII aircraft defence platform in international waters near the UK. Instead of focusing on the politics, the play was more about the relationships of the people living there and their efforts to start a new nation. It was really well written and acted.

On the less enjoyable side, we saw an embarrassingly bad stand-up variety show. It was even a stretch to pity laugh at times. The host dragged on with some uninspired digs at the audience before joking that he’d improved in the 15 years since receiving the review “not worth the free entry fee”. Unfortunately the review still rang true for us!

So you may be wondering how we went to half a show? A group of us decided to go and see the innocuously named “Von Trapp Family Singers”. The show started with a large woman in a Nazi jacket who promptly stripped off into something “more Jewish” – a bright red corset and stockings. And then the songs started… We lasted to the end of the second song (“I vish ze all could be Weimar Republic girls”) before escaping during a filmed segment. We don’t usually like walking out on shows, but for this we made an exception! We tried to salvage the night by heading into another show at random. We were met with the announcement “Hello everyone, I know you’re here to see some vintage pornography, but the host is sick tonight, so we’re filling in with some improv. Feel free to leave if this isn’t your thing.” Not in the mood for improv, we did leave. We would have been in for a surprise if the original show was on! Third time lucky, we ended up at a good stand-up gig run by Newcastle University students.

Edinburgh and Wellington have a few things in common - marginal weather for one, although we were lucky to have some lovely days. We found ourselves walking up and down hills for the first time in a while. There’s also a thriving arts scene and plenty of restaurants and bars. We found a craft beer bar with some great brews – including a 32% ale with an awesome name: Tactical Nuclear Penguin!

We’re really excited about the next part of the trip – hiring a campervan and heading north into the Scottish Highlands. We’re both experienced campers but haven’t hired a campervan before. This is also the first time we’ve had our own vehicle on this trip, which will let us explore small places off the beaten track. So we’re leaving Edinburgh for now. We’ve had such a fun time here and hope to return again some day.

Comments from WordPress

• Luke H 2012-08-23T20:26:27Z

  Edinburgh Castle looks amazing. Kind of stunned that the Sealand poster shows the wrong type of offshore fort - that’s a pretty big mistake to make about your central theme! :-)

• Alice 2012-08-24T21:04:38Z

  Yeah I noticed that too… I guess they are banking on that not many people have heard of Sealand. But it can’t be too hard to do a stylized version of the real thing right? Anyway - Edinburgh is awesome and I’m really looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks - has to be done again! Take care Craig and Sal - wonderful to enjoy your company again! xxx

• Hay 2012-08-26T09:30:21Z

  Ha, sounds like you had some fun moments in Edinburgh! Loving the blogs, great to hear about what you guys have been up too :)

  xx

• Hay 2012-08-26T09:31:06Z

  Up to*

• Rachael 2012-08-27T05:12:03Z

  Yay you made it to Edinburgh! That’s where I lived for two years and my twinies were made! If you are still there go visit Thom at Crystal Clear on Cockburn st, say hi to him from me :) Sounds like you are having a blast. Much love from NZCER Sally

• Craig and Sal 2012-09-09T12:36:46Z

  We hadn’t realised you’d lived there, it’s a cool city. Good to hear from you - say hi to everyone at NZCER :-)

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson