Tom Mallaburn of The Fitzrovia Radio Hour Looks Forward to his Fourth Fringe

As I make my fourth trip to Edinburgh as a performer I know it’s very easy to throw stones at the Festival (and I do like easy things). But I am going to force myself to write something entirely positive about this cruel mistress we call the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Except for that last sentence. These are the positive things I’m looking forward to:

– I finally get to use my ridiculously expensive “Rohan” umbrella – an unnecessarily elaborate Christmas present, designed to withstand any speed the North Sea wind can throw up

– I get to watch master anti-comedian Edward Aczel again (to whom I have absolutely no financial connection)

– I will get my year’s supply of scrap paper, simply from one five minute trip to the Royal Mile

– I get to stay in an Edinburgh “student” flat. the kind of lavish accommodation that makes Buckingham Palace seem a little pokey

– I get to drink in the Gilded Balloon Bar from which, in a moving coincidence, my father (as a student) was thrown out of for being “drunk and disorderly” forty years ago

– I get to finish work at 5pm, and thus am able to locate my life in the realm of the approximately normal for four weeks. (Except for the moments on stage when I will run terrified from the exploding melons that are creating the aural illusion of me being impaled on a huge spike. We’ve all been there).

– I get paid zero pounds for four weeks and so can kid myself that the whole extraordinary experience is a charitable donation (not sure to who though).

Fitzrovia Radio Hour
Gilded Balloon Dining Room
3-29 August (not 17)
16:00 (60 mins)