Best of the Edinburgh Blogs - Week Three

"So here we are at the last week of EdFringe, what does that really mean? Well, it means that we have a few awards and nominations under our belt, it means we have some sell-out shows and it means that our days are slightly more manageable. It also means that the month-long bubble of the festival is starting to pop. This begins by colleagues' partners coming to stay and therefore the outside world being allowed into our Festival Highlights camp. Ah the cries of ‘What do you mean there are floods in Pakistan and a potential hung parliament in Australia, I’m still hoping for a Comedy Awards nomination!’ It is easy to lose perspective up here!"

"So there I am in the opening seconds of the show - packed house, already starting to sweat - and up there in the audience at about two o'clock I see the barrel of a 200 Mil Telescopic lens staring at me. Then the click. And another click. Behind the camera - my brother. Brother Goose. It was great that brother Goose (aka Andrew) made it all the way from London to show support and watch the show only to go back the following day, and it seemed a top idea that he take photos during the show. I had said yes a few days ago, thinking it would be done on a silent i-phone type affair. I had then completely forgotten about the idea. So I guess it was my fault when that ol' SLR shutter started to snap away. I hadn't told the rest of the cast 'cos (a) I forgot and (b) I didn't think I'd need to - but this machine gun lens snapping away needed stopping..."

"Yesterday was the most fantastic example of the sort of day one only has at the Edinburgh Fringe. It started slowly (no change there, then) and a little frustratingly as I rang round various box offices in a desperate attempt to see some quality stuff before it's too late (I leave next Tuesday). Most of the shows that have received loads of attention are sold out. If I want to queue for returns for Daniel Kitson, I have to get there at 7.30am. Hmph. Not likely... I had lunch with my friend, Linda the homeopath. I say 'friend'; in fact, Linda and I have only hung out together on a week's holiday in Spain a few years ago, but we'd stayed in touch, so that when we were both going to be at the Fringe, we reconnected. This is a great Fringe phenomenon: old acquaintances turning up in Edinburgh, and because of the heady business of the whole place - emotions being high, theatre being shared - the friendship that may be have no long duration or depth becomes charged and layered. My show, Lady in Bed, tends to stimulate witnesses to tell me some hilarious or hideous stories from their own love-lives and a few times this Edinburgh, I've repaired to a pub after the show with friends (or strangers) for a great orgy of story-telling. Linda, like others, did not disappoint with the love-tales. So much material! I feel another play coming on..."

"I woke up this morning on my day off to see the rain pouring down outside my window. The sky was a heavy grey. My head throbbed and my throat felt like I'd just swallowed a handful of razor blades. Oh no... Fringe flu? Really? Let's think about this for a second. We're in Edinburgh, at the Fringe, where every day is a party. Every day we go out, we drink more than Ollie Reed ever did, we eat more rubbish than Elvis and we sleep no more than a couple of hours a night. We are now in week four of the festival. Twenty three days of living off coffee, beer, microwave meals, more beer, pizza and chips. If you ask me, it sounds like, after weeks of nutritional starvation and lack of rest, our bodies are beginning to waver a little. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's just a bout of the usual Fringe flu going round. I wish it would have waited till after my day off to strike though."

"On Sunday morning at 11am, I arrived at C Central for an event called the Naked Brunch, which is exactly what it was. Food was served, cabaret entertainment was in effect, a mix of burlesque and comedy (and evolutionary rap), and the performers (a dozen or so of us) and audience (about a hundred of them) were all 100% nude. This was one of those 'sign up for something crazy to test my own limits' initiatives, but when I stepped onto that stage in front of a room full of naked strangers, I didn't feel the least bit intimidated, even in spite of my awareness that the cool Scottish morning air was shriveling my endowment, credit crunch style. I just worked the word 'shrinkage' into the freestyle section of 'Performance, Feedback, Revision' (rhyming it with 'Brinkman' and 'delinquents'), kept calm and carried on (got a huge naked cheer too), then hustled out of there for my Evolution show at half twelve."

- Helena Rampley