Our son was part of a university revue show at the Edinburgh Fringe again this year, so of course we planned to spend a few days at the Fringe.
I finished work (for good!) on the Wednesday evening, and had a leaving dinner with my (now ex) colleagues on Thursday evening. I got back home on Friday and we headed off to Edinburgh on the Saturday morning.
Rather than drive up in one go, we opted to spend a couple of nights at Ribblehead. The Station Inn lets campervans park overnight in their car park as long as you use the pub so that was our plan for Saturday night. On Sunday night we found a quiet lay-by just down the road, which we had to ourselves with a spectacular view over the viaduct to wake up to. We got there on Saturday early enough for a 13km walk up Whernside, and on Sunday we did 18km over Ingleborough. They are two of the Yorkshire three peaks so it’s now on our list to go back and complete all three in one day.
There was no need for an early start on Monday morning. It’s only 3 hours from Ribblehead to Edinburgh and the campsite checkin was at 1pm. We wanted to be there close to that time as we had our first show booked for 3:35.
We stayed in the Mortonhall campsite, which turned out to be a great choice. There’s a bus stop just outside the site with buses every 20 minutes or so into the city (30 minute journey).
Our stay in Edinburgh was quite hectic - 9 shows over three days, with lots of time to wander around Edinburgh and take the mandatory walk up to Arthur’s Seat.
Monday
- Stevie Martin - excellent show, very well delivered. A great start to our Fringe.
- Jimeoin - always funny. We’ve seen him before and a lot of the material was familiar, but his delivery is brilliant even if you know what’s coming.
Tuesday
- Nish Kumar - an angry man! Very energetic lively performance. Definitely adults only.
- Kieran Hodgson - our only disappointing show this year. He was trying something new and, at least for us, it didn’t really work.
- Colin Hoult - we’ve seen him as Anna Mann, but this was his first show as Colin. Excellent hour - very funny, well constructed and wonderfully delivered.
Wednesday
- Glenn Moore - a work in progress show, but lots of funny material. Packed crowd for this early morning show.
- Durham Revue - good fun, well written and acted. A very solid revue performance.
- Myriam Margolyes - in a very large venue with 30 minutes of her reading playing characters from Dickens and 30 minutes of Q&A (another adult only show!)
- St George’s Medics Revue - the highlight of the Fringe for us. Of course Jack was part of the cast and we knew most of the other actors, but the content was excellent. A great theme and lots of medical-based sketches with an exceptionally high hit-rate. Well done to all involved!
It is such a great atmosphere at the Fringe and we had a great time. I might be biased, but I really do think the St George’s Medics Revue was the best show we saw. Hopefully we’ll be back again next year, even though Jack won’t be directing/performing next year.
