A Holiday, A Holiday, The first one of the year . . .
I thought it'd be worth writing this somewhere before I forget, and I don't have a blog of my own, but this I reckon is worth putting somewhere.
What I did on my holidays by Wayne Bolt
For the first time in six years I managed to use some of my holiday on actually doing something fun, not being called by work was also a bonus. I decided that this year's holiday would be to take in a couple of festivals, namely Fairport's Cropredy Convention and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Cropredy Capers 9th-11th August
This year, Peter, Liz, Sue and Adrian attended the SOLD OUT Cropredy Convention, I think all in all it was one of the better Cropredys I've been to.
The Thursday line-up was alright, good background music to get settled into the festival (Anthony John Clarke, Kerfuffle, Wishbone Ash, Seth Lakeman, Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, featuring: Gilson Lavis with guest vocalists - Lulu and Ruby Turner), nothing really stood out as being anything special but was good enough.
Friday was better (Hummingbird, Mad Agnes, The Demon Barbers Roadshow, Last Orders, Viva Santana, Show of Hands, Fairport 1969 perform Liege and Lief, featuring: Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Richard Thompson and Chris While, The Richard Thompson Band).
Mad Agnes were a fun American trio with some good songs, well worth a listen if you can get hold of their stuff anywhere.
The Demon Barbers Roadshow were really good, you can download an album for free from their website they are well worth a listen. Show of Hands were excellent (I find they can either be really good or alright) well on form with some good songs.
The Fairport Leige and Leif set was fantastic - it's a pretty damn good album and they did it proud. Richard Thompson was likewise really good.
Saturday had the potential to be a bit naff, but turned out to be a lot better than expected (Richard Digance, Give Way, The Bucket Boys, Iain Matthews, The Strawbs, Billy Mitchell and Bob Fox, Fairport Convention and friends).
Digence, as always, was on top form, I think he pretty much had all 23,000 people in attendance Morris Dancing to Two Little Boys. The Saturday midday slot really his is own now, and the field was packed - nornally it takes well into late afternoon / early evening to get that crowded. It emptied quite a lot once he'd gone though.
The Strawbs were absolutely progtastic - well worth getting some of their stuff (especially if you like folk inlfuenced progressive rock).
Billy Mitchell and Bob Fox, to canny geordie lads, were really funny and had a good rapport with the crowd, well worth listening to.
Fairport were surprisingly good this year - mostly helped by Dave Swarbrick (bless 'im) being on stage for most of their set instead of Mr Sanders. Fairport are really getting all modern now, they had a huge projection screen at the back of the stage onto which they displayed very literal interprestations of some of their songs (Red & Gold, Walkawhile, Who Knows Where the Time Goes) but most brilliantly was the Lego Matty Groves, one the funniest things I'd seen in ages. They did at one state run ou of songs due to starting early, so we were treated to the "abridged" version of John Barleycorn.
So overall, a good festival - I'm looking forward to seeing who they have on next year as this will affect my decision whether to go or not.
Got home Sunday evening, and got ready to go to Edinburgh!
Wayne's Edinburgh Escapade
Monday
Flew to Edinburgh on Monday evening, booked into to the International Guest House that was really pleasant - comfortable, not too far from the City Centre, close to public transport etc. Had a look round Edinburgh on Monday evening, but got lost as I was swept away by the hordes leaving the castle after watching the Tattoo.
Tuesday
Started off the day by going on one of those guided bus tours, was actually very useful as you get to see all the useful bits of Edinburgh and get a vague feel for the city layout. Edinburgh is actually a nice city, with some fantastic views, but slightly confusing street layouts (where they one street can be up to five stories higher than it's neighbour!)
Saw my first show "Trumptonshire Tales" with Brian Cant and Phil Jupitus. The show was pretty much Brian Cant and Phil Jupitus talking about Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley. It was a humurous trip down memory lane and well worth seeing.
Went to see Stewart Lee (of Lee and Herring fame) in the evening, once again a funny show but not rip roaring hilarious.
The evening was finished with a trip to see Rich Hall - this is where I learnt (through seeing this happen to other people) not to sit in the front row at a gig, as you basically set yourself up to be a target, fortunately I was in row 2, so escaped!
Wednesday
Started out by seeing Girl and Dean, a not famous girl double act pretty much doing a sketch show. Whilst this show was pleasant enough to watch it was nothing rip roaringly funny apart from their "Ninjury Lawyers Direct" joke which was genius. Worth seeing just for that.
My afternoon show was Chanbara a mixture of Japanese drumming and, ahem, sword fighting. It was a good spectacle and was nice to see something different from comedy for a change. Frnak Skinner was in the audience for this show, but was surprisingly absent from Cropredy this year.
For the early evening slot, I went to see Norman Lovett's Slide Show. It pretty much does what it says in the tin. Really amusing.
Mark Watson was my evenings viewing, and he was well worth seeing (front row, but stuck on the end so safe) he's a really nice comedian who can make you laugh without being rude or nasty at people. Of all the "professional" comics I saw this week he was the funniest.
Then proceeded to get very drunk.
Thursday
So, not wanting to do much this morning due to my hangover, I decided to go on a Tour of a Whiskey Museum to pass a couple of hours. Imagine my surprise when I was given some whiskey to taste at the start of the tour - they could have waited a couple of hours! Then imagine even more of a surprise as I was told not to drink it straight away as we would be "tasting it together", still it was nice and a good way to kill some time before the afternoon shows.
Saw another unkown group "Wit Tank" with A Different Kettle of Fish another amateur sketch show kind of thing. It was once again alright with only one laugh out loud moment (which was watching someone eating a cake) my main problem with this show was that all the actors pretty much played the same kinda role in each sketch. Still it was good and no worse than some of the tat we get on TV.
Two shows in the evening. Firstly Richard Herring (of Lee & Herring fame) in Oh Fuck! I'm Forty. Funny observational show that I really enjoyed, but was a bit too close for comfort sometimes as he was rabbiting on about the stresses of being a lardy single 40year old trying to still live life like a 20 year old (well at least I've got five and a half years to try and avoid this, eep).
Then, the funniest show of the week by far, Tom & Co's Sh*tty Deal Puppet Theatre's Complete History of Oppression Everywhere, by the Axis of evil. It was in a small 42 seater venue, located in the cellar of a church. The show was pretty much packed out, and I don't know if it was the right mix of the performance and the audience interaction, but this show was fantastic - much funnier than at the the preview in Norwich - the crowd were totally into it, with what seemed to be a five minute break in the preceedings as the audience could stop laughing at puppet Jesus. I hung around with the Axis of Evil for the rest of the evening and had a good larf (although not as drunken as the night before due to still being a bit hungover, Wednesday night was one of those nights).
Friday
Only one show booked for today, and that was Jimmy Carr. The show didn't start until 9pm, so I had plenty of time to do some wandering around Edinburgh. I met up with Hugh for a spot of lunch which was nice, and we managed to not talk LARP for a good 20 minutes to half an hour or so, so we did pretty well there. Spent some time watching street performers (mostly jugglers all claiming to be the only ones in the world to do their speciality trick). On the whole, the street performers are really good - but they have to be! They live on the donations of the audience once they've seen the show so really have to be on top form. Or hungry. Well worth watching and even gave some money to some of them.
So, Jimmy Carr - Repeat Offender in the evening. From what I can tell you either like or loathe Jimmy Carr, I think he's funny. Most of his material is of the setup / punchline format, as opposed to the rambling monologues of some performers, but I found him funny. I think there's enough material in his set to offend pretty much everyone. So that was it, my last show of the festival, or so I though until a scantily clad lass was waiting at the bottom of the stairs advertising a Burlesque show. "Cool!" I thought as I've never been to such a show, I thought I'd give it a go.
Well, oh my giddy aunt, this show was so terrible it was hilarious. It was basically three lasses, only one of whom had any talent being vaguely burlesquely with the worse jokes in the world. Fortunately, there were some jokers in the audience who kept it a laugh. This is probably best explained in person as I don't think the written word is a suitable medium for some of the crap that was going on. However, due to its naffness, and the wearing down of the audience so that we bonded as a group to get through the experience is something I'll treasure.
So that's it! My holidays. One last point I'd like to mention as I find it quite amusing is that the bus journey (the number 27) from Norwich Aiport to the Mitre on Earlham Road took almost as long, if not longer, than the flight from Edinburgh to Norwich. What a crazy, crazy world!
Good Night and thanks for watching, you've been a great audience, and I look forward to seeing you again.
Wayne
posted by Wayne @ 3:52 pm
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