Bo Burnham (Words, Words, Words) – Emily thought I would hate Bo Burnham. I was hopeful that I would like Bo Burnham (realistically thinking I probably wouldn’t, and would just sit with gritted teeth for an hour). We were both pleasantly surprised. Bo Burnham is clever and talented and incredibly filthy. But he plays the piano like an angel and his songs are really catchy. The night we went was good because there was a guide dog in the audience and Bo got a bit obsessed with it. Although he kept getting the dog’s name wrong, it did make him realise how much dog-related material he had. Definitely worthy of the comedy award, although Emily and I had him pegged for best newcomer.
The Horne Section (with Alex Horne, Tim Key, Alun Cochrane & Jon Richardson) – Bar Mark Watson’s book launch (more of this, with pictures, in another blog post), The Horne Section was probably the most Fringe-y thing we saw in Edinburgh. Orchestrated by Alex Horne, it featured Tim Key and two other guest comedians being funny with music. There are also games (mainly audience battleships) and banter and at one point some chips were passed around (I only just realised quite how much food featured in the shows we went to). We were also treated to Alex Horne’s signature PowerPoint presentations, which were personalised to our audience and were a proper giggle. The guest comedians on our night were Alun Cochrane (cool, had an actual box of jokes) and Jon Richardson (said sex words over sexy music – I nearly died, Emily was fully aware of this and laughed at me). There was also a special musical guest for the night – Oompah Brass – who were great, but their tuba player was very ill and I spent most of their set terrified that he would throw up whilst playing his tuba and shower us all in sick (we were on the front row). It was the absolute best. It felt like a Christmas party in someone’s (very big) front room, where everyone (audience and performers) was having fun (complete opposite of Comedy Countdown). I think it showed how good The Horne Section is that David O’Doherty was there just to watch (fact: David O’Doherty does not know what an ISA is; Alun Cochrane does). I so hope Alex Horne does this or something similar again – it was my highlight of the festival.
Oxford Imps – The Oxford Imps are phenomenal. They have so much energy and are amazing at improv. I’m in awe of them. They improvised a musical for God’s sake – and it was good aswell. I just love them.
Laura Solon (The Owl of Steven) – We went to see Laura Solon based on the good reviews she’d been getting during the first week of the festival (our choices were nothing if not well-researched). I’m glad we did. She was charming and clever and did an amazing range of characters (her show was a character-based adventure story about an owl from the Island of Steven). The only problem with the warm room and narrative-based nature of her show was that it felt like a well-acted bedtime story for two girls who’d managed four hours of sleep. One of us fell asleep (hint: it wasn’t me).
Josie Long (Be Honourable!) – I love Josie Long. I want to be her friend. She makes her own programmes and hands them out herself – how can you not love her? Her show this year was about wanting to be a better person, and the main elements of that are eating breakfast every day (in particular porridge) and talking to strangers. She has such enthusiasm about the stuff that she loves and it is pretty infectious (her 2008 show has made me obsessed with going to the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford). She did a bizarre character piece at the beginning where she played a horrible female astronaut from Orpington in Kent and took questions about space from the audience. It fitted with her 2008 show ‘All of the Planet's Wonders (Shown in Detail)’ but the accent she did was very grating (she said arksed instead of asked and it drove Emily mad). I’m glad she only did that for five minutes. My favourite thing about Josie Long is that she’s clever and she shows it, and never does the lazy women comedienne thing of doing material about how hilarious/infuriating being a woman is. I’m glad she was nominated for the comedy award, she deserves it. I’m going to see her again in Bristol.
We also went to see some friends of ours from Bristol in their Improv show Interrobang. It was really good, but I’d feel weird writing anything about it because I know them.
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