Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks secret Diary – w/e 20^th August 2006

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been running since nineteen oatcake. To my undying shame, until this weekend, I’d never actually been. A festival of world renown on my own doorstep and I’d never bothered to visit. This is partially due to my poor organisational abilities and to a degree due to my poor organisational abilities. This combined with my inability to organise and you can see the problem. It doesn’t help that getting tickets for any of the main acts requires months of forward planning and if you’re a halfwit who leaves it until the last night of the show you’re probably not going to get!

Luckily I have a friend Sam (yes I do) who is organised and he had arranged for a Friday night triple bill with which to pop my festival cherry. The evening would commence with Mr Paul Merton and his improv chums, this would be followed by an audience with Bill Bailey and his steam trumpet? Finishing in style with the ‘zany’ ramblings of Rich Hall. A potential side splitting laughathon I think you will agree.

We arrived in Edinburgh around lunchtime and adjourned to a local hostelry to lubricate our laughing gear. It’s a serious business is laughter. You may mock but it can be very dangerous chuckling with a dry larynx, could do yourself a nasty injury, and naturally we didn’t want that. Our festival host recommended beer as the most appropriate lubricant, and who was I to argue with festival ‘protocol’. After all Edinburgh does have a large number of fine ales and it would be rude not to try some.

My personal favourite turned out to be ‘Deuchars IPA (India Pale Ale)’. A sumptuous pint which would best be described as; of a pale gold colour with intense hop flavours and aromas balanced with Caledonians traditional soft maltiness, or so it said on the big black board over the bar. Five or six pints of soft maltiness later we staggered off towards the first venue. The rain gods ensured that by the time we got there we were as damp on the outside as we were on the inside.

The rain was hammering down as a cheery faced man in a see through plastic poncho handed out pieces of damp paper and cheap ballpoint pens ‘Can everyone write down an odd situation for Paul and his chums to act out later on’. ‘This ish jusht like ooose line ish it any-hic-way’ isn’t it’ I mumbled to Sam whilst jovially nudging him in the ribs. He looked at me with disdain ‘It is whose line is it anyway you idiot!’, ‘Oh … right, hee hee hee’ I was having some problems focusing on the paper. Clearly my beer goggles were not the same prescription as my contact lenses. I couldn’t think of anything to write, so in the spirit of a ten year old, I drew a picture of a knob and balls and thrust the paper into the collection bucket.

The venue was quite small. I guess it probably held about a hundred and twenty people and the queue moved quickly. Too quickly in fact. As I sat down I realised that in my haste to sketch a comedy knob for Mr Merton et al I’d forgotten to buy a drink! Visions of laryngeal dryness filled me with dread and I was about to burst into a screaming hissy fit when Craig tapped me on the arm and passed a pint into my grateful hands.

The ‘hall’ turned out to be the size of my front room and with seventeen rows of plastic school chairs crammed inside it was fairly compact. Let’s not beat about the bush, we were sat cheek to jowl. If only the cheek which was in close proximity to my jowl had been from someone else’s face I would have been much happier. These minor discomforts were swiftly forgotten with the arrival of Mr Merton on stage.

The show was fantastic, it was only an hour long but it was a total scream from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed the posh woman sat in front of us who just shouted complete filth out all through the performance. It’s nice to let your hair down I feel.

We managed to sneak in another couple of pints before Bill Bailey. ‘Cant be too careful’ Sam warned as he pointed to his larynx and thrust another pint in my hand. The world was looking extremely rosy as I was engulfed in a pleasant amber hue. Even the persistent rain was not an issue as we tottered to the next venue. Although I did get a bit of a shock when I arrived. I didn’t realise Mr Bailey had such an ardent following of weirdo’s. I thought we’d mistakenly arrived at a Sci-Fi convention when we entered. ‘Bloody.. hic .. hell were shurrounded by Orcs!’ I giggled as we made our way to the bar.

It was another top drawer performance. I was having a whale of a time at my first Fringe ‘s’reeeeally really good thish Sham, yooraflippin greeeeat hosht, yoo are’eally reaaly are’ I slurred as we meandered round to the assembly rooms for the last show of the night. But not before we had another couple of pints. It would have been a schoolboy error to let ourselves ‘dry out’ this close to the end of the night.

The queue for this venue was a tad longer than the previous gigs. It snaked out of the assembly rooms, down George Street, along Princess Street, up round the castle and down to the docks in Leith. Ok so it wasn’t that long but it was pretty extensive. Certainly long enough to mean that despite ‘going’ before we started queuing, my bladder was again in need of emptying. Unfortunately we had been shepherded all the way up into the ‘Gods’ at the very back of the hall. I managed to squeeze my way back out and searched frantically for the little boy’s room.

Actually the little boys, big girls, medium trannys, any kind of fecking room was going to have to do. I was about to wet myself when I saw a door marked ‘private’. That was going to have to suffice. I twisted the handle and amazingly it opened, possibly giving it a hefty nudge with my shoulder at the same time had helped. I burst into the room and spotted a fire bucket in the corner ‘Ohthankfuuuck!’ my zip was already down when I reached the bucket and I let rip into the dry sand ‘Ooooohyeeeeeees’

‘Jeeese buddy most people wait to hear me before they take the piss’ whispered a voice in my ear. At which point I shat myself.

Never meet your heroes, especially when it’s in a quiet cupboard and they are having a sly smoke…….

Doei