By Festival Highlights
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Lights, Camera, Walkies' Richard David Caine Plays 25 Characters Every Day

So... that umbrella was a good call!



The festival this year, as ever, is a lively, fun and vibrant place - lightly coated in half of the North Sea. I've actually never seen so much rain, the famous Scottish hills looking like waterfalls, the cobbled roads like the rapids. My mother came up yesterday hoping to camp out in it, I received a call from her today sounding like she was at death's door, and begging to sleep on my couch and borrow my straighteners. But all this crap weather hasn't dampened Edinburgh's spirits. The shows must go on!

This year I'm in two shows. The first is exciting new play Lights, Camera, Walkies, which is at 2pm everyday at the Gilded Balloon. It is a funny and bizarre look at Hollywood through the story of rival dog handlers, with me playing about 10 characters. As I hoist up sets everyday in a stupidly quick turn around from the preceding show, I realise this is what Edinburgh is all about - show after show, audience after audience, no time to really think about it but just to thrust yourself in to it (much like the audiences do). I'm having a great time on this play - each audience giving a completely different response and constantly keeping me on my toes. The Gilded Balloon is also a great place to perform, it really does seem like the hub of what's going on.
 
And then, in true Edinburgh fashion, I dart around the corner to the Royal Mile to start flyering for my next show, which is my comedy sketch group Four Screws Loose in our show Screwed Over Again, which is at 4.15pm daily (not Sat) at Bannermans. This is a wild, fun and frenzied sketch show which takes the audience through music to dance, through prostitutes to Primark. Following from the success of last year's show, it appears we're becoming the hit of the entire Free Fringe and word on the street is definitely one of being 'Screwed'. The show flies by after a blur of bras, wigs and applause, though the great thing about this show is that in one sketch we photograph the audience in compromising positions and then post them on our Facebook page afterwards, so we have some happy memories to look at afterwards. Seeing 100 people as a 'Happy Rabbit' or a 'Randy Cat' gives me feelings of pure joy!
 
So, I'm currently sitting in a pub, having played about 25 characters today, walked, flyered, walked, set up, walked, done a get out, and walked again (what's with all the hills?), this actor is ready for bed... But of course bed is not an option because it's Edinburgh. Now... whose round is it?

- by Festival Highlights

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

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