The Wrestling

Wow.

Just... wow.

Granted, I’m no Fringe veteran, but I think I speak on behalf of the 800 or so screaming, sweating people who packed out the Pleasance Grand last night when I say that Max Olesker’s brainchild, The Wrestling, was one of the greatest experiences in the history of the Edinburgh Festival.

We arrived half an hour late after finishing our own show, and were escorted to our seats. Right on the front row, courtesy of the amazing Beth O’Brien who, along with Max and Ivan, had organised this insanity. This chaos.

We sat back, and were treated to just the most bizarre spectacle any of us had witnessed. Max, formerly Max Voltage, the Human Dynamo and the youngest ever professional wrestler in the country at one time, called upon five or six of his wrestling buddies (one of them the biggest man I’ve ever seen) and teamed them up with some of the best comedians on the Fringe to create two hours of comedy wrestling madness.

Team Kane, lead by Gimp fan Russell Kane (see how I slipped that in there?) saw the likes of Colin Hoult as Thwor, the God of Thwunder, teamed up with Dan “The Hammer” Head, and Patrick Monahan, who didn’t actually wrestle, but ran about a lot. They faced off against Team Riches, Adam Riches ‘Heel’ side, which included a surprisingly skilled Humphrey Ker as The Vinyl Solution and Tom ‘Explosenthal’ Rosenthal, who looked more like a gimp than any of us have ever done. Brendon Burns and Andrew Maxwell commentated, or at least took the piss out of Patrick Monahan. Matthew Crosby tried to keep order as did ring announcer Nick Helm.

The night culminated in Max performing what I believe is called a Senton Bomb, a sort of backflip off the top rope onto his opponents, and fracturing his left ankle.

The good guys won, the bad guys lost and the night was an unmitigated, mental, ridiculous success. Whatever happens to poor old Max for the rest of the run (I hear that his and Ivan’s show Holmes and Watson, which you should definitely go and see, contains a pretty vigorous Charlston. Not ideal with only one working foot) he can at least be happy with the fact that he has created what is sure to be an Edinburgh institution.

And we’re all genuinely proud to have been able to say “I was there”.

Paul

PS apparently my blogs read as if they were written by Alan Bennett. I don’t think he knows what a gimp is, though...

Hoff-Off

Hello again.

Last night's show was fun. It was a little weird knowing two of our comedy heroes; Stewart Lee and Russell Kane were both in the audience. At least we know the latter enjoyed it after his very sweet tweet about it... I shudder to think what Mr Lee made of us.

The dreaded 'fringe flu' is threatening to rear its ugly head and Richard's voice is already sounding rather croaky so it was straight back home to bed for us.

Today was mainly taken up with filming for BBC at Edinburgh Fringe 2011. We were there to film ten minutes at the BBC Comedy Presents show this afternoon, it was all very glamorous. Here's Paul in make-up... she really had her work cut out.

There tends to be a lot of waiting around when you do any filming, so we spent most of the afternoon in the green room and today, we saw something extraordinary.

We were sat backstage with Tom Deacon and Joel Dommet talking about our shows when who should stride in but David Hasselhoff. That's right, The Hoff. As if the moment wasn't surreal enough who should walk in next? Ze Hoff! That's right, A Hoff impersonator! We watched behind fits of giggles as Ze Hoff met his hero and The Hoff got slowly more and more weirded out... it was a full on Hoff-off. Tom managed to capture the moment on his phone here.

My favourite moment was when the real Hoff, before leaving the room, turned to his double and declared: "May The Hoff be with you" and with that, he was gone. Legend.

The actual gig went well too (anything's going to be a bit of an anti-climax when you've witnessed a live Hoff-off) and you should be able to see our bits on BBC Three soon... watch this space!

We're sold out again tonight, but it's worth saying last night we had our first night that didn't sell out. So if you happen to be a Pleasance Pass holder and have been turned away, this could be the week we sneak you in as traditionally the third week's a bit quieter... so you may be in luck!

hangover

Just a quick note to say after an epic Silent Disco last night, we've been too hungover to blog today.

We're saving any energy we have for the show tonight, but in the mean-time I'd point you in the direction of yesterday's blog if you've not read it, for a tale of David's thundering stupidity.

Normal Service will resume tomorrow.

Two nightmares in one night.

Helo. Injured David here.

So last night I did without doubt the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life.

I'd just put on a new black polo t'shirt I'd bought to wear for the show. As I was getting ready to leave I noticed that the collar was up. Not wanting to look any more pretentious than usual, or like I was trying to bring back the 'Cantona collar', I figured I'd need to iron it down. Most people would have taken the shirt off, gone to an ironing bored and done so. Not me. Not maverick Moon. I decided it would be a handy time saving -if incredibly dangerous- idea to just iron the collar down while I was still wearing the t'shirt.

I don't know how an idea like that could ever be considered good, but I pressed on. Literally. Sure enough, within a few seconds I'd missed the collar and managed to give myself a third degree burn with the iron. An hour before the show. Here is photographic documentation of my unparalleled idiocy:

Then to add insult to a very literal injury, last night's show was, to put it mildly, a bit of a nightmare. It was no-one's fault in particular but pretty much everything that could go wrong took it upon itself to do so. In style.

Some lowlights included the UV lights not working in our first UV scene. Have you ever performed an entirely visual sketch in total darkness before? No, nor had we, until last night. The reaction, as you'd expect, was utter confusion followed by a sympathetic (well, they had a go didn't they...) smattering of applause.

A number of sound cues played in the wrong order, and one of the videos we have between sketches decided not to play at all. This made a costume change between sketches impossibly quick for Matt so when he did almost make it onstage he caught his zimmer-frame in the curtain as he did so. It made for an absolutely chaotic finale. So much had gone wrong by this stage I think we were all openly laughing on stage. Oh well. We had to laugh about it afterwards... it was either that or cry.

Let's hope that's our nightmare show of the run done now. If you came last night we can only apologise! In the words of D:REAM...

A Good day

Today was a good day.

We were taken to lunch at The Outsider by our agents. It's a great restaurant on George IV Bridge, the food is properly delicious. Half way through the meal we heard we'd been given a Five Star review by Steve Bennett on Chortle, which really made our day.

Chortle's basically the UK's official comedy website and if you work in comedy you tend to check it most days. Steve is the editor and wasn't that keen on our first show two years ago, so it was great to hear we'd managed to win him over with this year's show.

Here's the ★★★★★ review. It describes us as "A gloriously funny spunkstorm of bad taste" which, as quotes go, is a pretty memorable one.

We then toddled off to do a podcast for Xfm then I saw The Beta Males: The Train Job which I thoroughly enjoyed. A great piece of narrative comedy performed by four seriously commited, seriously sweaty young guys. Highly recommended.

I must also mention probably the best show I've seen so far this Fringe. Bane 3. Joe Bone is the kind of performer you could watch forever and it wouldn't be long enough. He and his guitarist Ben have concluded the Bane trilogy with a show that, remarkably, is even better than the previous two. Funny as f***, brilliantly performed and constantly inventive. Go see it. Now.

David.

One big damn puzzler...

hey hey hey

its Matt!!!! you lucky things.

Yesterdays blog from Paul got a bit of a bad response, someone actually said that reading his blog was like reading an Alan Bennett Monologue, other people suggested we kick him out of the group altogether (me) so i am not going to talk too much i will keep it as snappy and interesting as possible.

So shows are going well blah blah blah. lets cut straight to the good the stuff, the stuff you really want to hear about, the real reason you started reading this, i am talking of course about Jigsaw puzzles.

Specifically the Jigsaw puzzle that we started and finished, 8hours later, yesterday. it is only 600 pieces but all the pieces are very oddly shaped. (as you can see from this typical piece) also it is a picture of earth which (assuming you are familiar with earth) you will know has a lot of sea that looks very similar to other sea.

So the puzzle fun began about 12:00 with just me and Rich and carried right through until 5 which we felt was a fairly good stint but very little was done and we knew we had a big night of puzzling ahead of us after the show. so we went and did our show and me and Rich both agreed that while the show went well it was a massive distraction from our puzzle building. so we all came straight home in a cab (rock and roll) ensuring we got a receipt (not rock and roll) and burst through our door me and rich headed straight for the puzzle, Dave and Paul poured the wine out that the Pleasance had kindly given us and Lee made himself a tuna Bap with a stone on the side (rock and roll).

Once the puzzle was about 50 pieces from completion at about 2:00 am who should suddenly show interest? the rest of the gimps! I was not happy but they outnumbered me, and rich (as always) was no help. so I let them join as long as i could put the last piece in. so the time came we had got to our last piece! this was it, with my palms sweating and everyone cheering me on I slowly slid a section of the Atlantic ocean into place and we were done! the room exploded into a frenzy of relief and excitement with a real sense of achievement, it felt like finally after 3 years of Edinburgh we had achieved something!.... then we looked up.... 16 Pieces! 16 Pieces were missing from the Jigsaw....i cried, Rich cried, Lee cried, Dave didn't care and Paul cried. another day in Edinburgh wasted.

The only good thing to come out of the day was the things we saw all of a great quality. between us we saw Lady Garden, Humphrey Kur, The Three Englishmen, David Reed and Colin Hoult. all very different and interesting shows that are definitely worth seeing this year.

Chow

Matt "the puzzle" Ralph.

Food, glorious food...

We had possibly the most uneventful day in LNGF's Fringe history yesterday. A long overdue early night/lie in, coupled with the fact that we couldn't get in to any shows because everything was sold out and a performance last night that we felt went fine means there's nothing much to write about.

So instead, let's talk about something else that takes over Edinburgh-based peoples lives in August. Food.

I have never eaten so much crap in my entire life. I haven't had a vegetable in two weeks, unless you count the obligatory post show chips, on which we smother a variety of equally unhealthy liquids. I, being a Northerner at heart, always opt for gravy. Dave, on the other hand, goes for the mysterious substance found only in Edinburgh and known only as "soss" (sauce, in English).

Matt is certainly able to pack it away duri

ng the Fringe. I remember last year, when we shared a bedroom (and a bed) sitting up at four in the morning, watching aghast as he demolished TWO Rustlers microwaveable burgers, a huge packet of kettle chips and an entire Victoria sponge, all washed down with a litre of Coke. And when he had crammed the last slice of sponge in, he rolled over, turned off the light and went to sleep, as his stomach went into overtime.

One Fringe habit we always break is the group meal. It's nice before a show to all get together, sit down and eat a meal as a family. It relaxes us and gets us focused for the evening ahead. We also usually take it in turns to cook and wash up each day (except Richard, who, in reference to the mountain of washing up he had failed to deal with three days running, once uttered the now legendary phrase "Well, as long as it gets done.") Inevitably, however, when we begin seeing shows at different times of day and as friends and family come up to visit, the group splinters and the customary gimp Chillis/Bologneses become fewer and fewer. Cheers, Rich.

Another Fringe favourite is the Tatty Dog, a sausage wrapped in mash and deep fried. Actually more appetising than it sounds. We're also a stones throw from a shop called Choco Latte, the most ridiculously chocolate stuffed shop I've ever set foot in. Everything is covered in melted chocolate and chopped up Mars Bars. I had seven pints and two Jaeger bombs last night, more than enough for a lightweight like me, and yet felt better this morning than I did half an hour after eating three quarters of the muffin I bought from that shop. So nice, but so sickening.

Well, probably better wrap things up now. Just time to mention Tizzle, who is a dab hand at a Bolognese. Me, Matt, Rich and Lee are all pretty terrible in the kitchen, hence the dash on our allocated nights to put the frozen pizzas in the oven and claim we've cooked dinner. However, I suppose it would only be fair of me to say Dave is the best cook, as he usually does most of the cooking (and he's just made me a bacon sandwich in exchange for writing this blog).

It was a very good sandwich.

Paul.

PS- A nice ★★★★ review from Edinburgh Festivals Magazine here.

Minds elsewhere

Afternoon all.

It was a great to wake up yesterday feeling like we finally had a suitable ending for the show (even if this feeling was accompanied by a splitting headache and Palmyra wrap sauce round our mouths.) But it was 2 for 1 day and we were determined to make the most of it.

The definite highlight of yesterday was the double act Totally Tom on at the Underbelly. I first became aware of their writing via their excellent YouTube video series High Rennaisance Man and David's been going on about them ever since we gigged with them earlier in the year. Sure enough, they didn't disappoint. Their characterisation was spot on with the 21st Birthday speech sketch was a particular highlight. Catch them as soon as you can, they are going to be massive.

Our show went pretty well - now we have the order sorted, we can start to relax and enjoy it more.

When we got back to the flat we tuned into the news for the first time this fringe and watched the heartbreaking images of London in flames and chaos. London is home for all of the gimps and we all suddenly felt very far away. It is difficult to articulate the atmosphere at the fringe but the insulated bubble has definitely been burst and everyone is feeling very concerned for those we've left behind and for London in general. This EdinburghIsFunny Article sums up the feeling up here very well. We all really hope some calm returns to London and that everyone is safe.

In slightly happier news, we got our first paper review today and it was a lovely one from the Edinburgh Evening News. "Their sheer verbal, physical and visual inventiveness leaves you breathless" ★★★★

Richard.

That's more like it.

Great show last night. Really, really enjoyed it. The audience were bang up for it from the start and we felt like we did as slick a show as we could have hoped for. Let's hope we keep it up and the audiences continue to be as full and enthusiastic as last night!

The elusive early night still hasn't materialised yet... it was the legendary Matt Tizzle's last show before he heads back to London for his other job so we took him out and saw him off in style, then came home and ate leftover pizza at 4am.

Today we all had a lie in and have resolved to finally get out there and see some shows. I broke my fringe duck yesterday with Humphrey Ker's show Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher! A seemingly effortless yet brilliant bit of storytelling, and really, really funny too. Highly recommended.

Now off to take advantage of 2for1 day and see some bloody shows!

david.

Weirdest gig ever.

Last night.

How to describe last night.

Let me start at the beginning. We noticed in our diary that we were supposed to be doing a late night show elsewhere. Not too bad we thought. We got to the venue. It was the same venue as our now legendary failure of a gig from last year.

Ok we thought. A good chance to put some ghosts to bed. Great. It'll be fun.

I don't think the word fun was uttered all night.

There were 14 acts on. That's right, 14 of them. It was as though they had got a copy of the brochure, set fire to it and rifled through the ashes to see what kind of disjointed show could be put together. And then decided to put us on 12th.

There were Shakespearean improvisers, there were singers in drag, there were acrobats and there was Paul Daniels.

That's the kind of night we were looking at. It was being held together by two performers who, in all fairness, seemed to have less idea what was going on then the performers did.

The show went up at about half past one and I can safely say the audience were outnumbered by the acts at about three to one. Acts were dropping out left right and centre. We felt too bad to leave so we tried to soldier on as things got weirder and weirder. This picture was taken of us at the interval.

The best thing about the photo was we asked the bar man who took it if it was ok and he said yes.

Yes?!?

We look like we've been taken through a hazy fog. Or through a window. Or in the 1800's.

This guy was certainly no Mario Testino.

By this point we were falling apart. David had eaten no less than five packets of crisps. He was trying to overdose on potatoey badness to get him out of there.

No luck.

It was almost our time to go on. Things couldn't have got any weirder.

Then a man walked in wearing a full Dorothy from Wizard of Oz costume.

Five gimp jaws dropped as the only sounds in the room were coming from a man murdering a musical classic and the constant friction of Judy Garland spinning in her grave.

Five minutes that we will never get back later and we were on. Fuck it we thought, let's do the bestiality song! They definitely weren't the crowd for it but by this point we were beyond caring.

It went pretty well! We did a good version and the people seemed to go with it. A good time to escape. They then decided to interview Matt and Paul. Here is a sample of that interview:

Weird woman host: "There are so many words. How do you remember them?"

Paul: "That's my job?"

***

Weird guy host: "You don't really do much do you?"

Matt: "Erm...thanks?"

Needless to say we then grabbed our coats, jumped in a taxi and never looked back.

And that's the tale of our terrible gig (number one!).

Did we exorcise the demons of last year?

Well the gig was just as bad this year.

At least this time it wasn't our fault!

Am off to try and buy a Judy Garland costume. If you can't beat them...

Lee.

Late nights, early mornings...

Paul, here.

6.15. AM. In the morning. That's what time we got in last night. The rock n' roll lifestyle of sketch comedians, eh?

The show had gone well, and straight after we had to set up for The Great Big Sketch Off, hosted by Lee. Happily, it was a Great Big success, raising a load of cash for charity and won by our very own Matt Ralph, along with The Three Englishmen's Tom Hensby, Max Olesker from Max and Ivan and Paul Dunn from Don't Trust Salmon (all shows definitely worth checking out by the way!)

Then it was off to the Courtyard to bid farewell to our director, Steve. Last year, his final night at the fringe involved about ten pints of Guinness, a heated political debate and a piggy back that nearly broke Matt's ribcage. Fortunately, this was a much more relaxed affair, and we stayed on the balcony at the Loft bar until it got light and depressing.

We were up at eleven (look, it's early for Edinburgh...), having relay showers, before heading to the Dome for drinks with our agents Phil McIntyre's acts and street team, all lovely people and a great way to work off the hangover.

Finally started seeing shows today. Caught The Beta Males and Zeus' Pamphlet, both great shows definitely worth seeing, and we're very much looking forward to seeing Lee appearing in Gimp-favourite Adam Riches' show every day of the Fringe!

So that's the guff out of the way. What you really want to know is just how many nicknames do I have now? I have to say it's getting ridiculous now, with new ones being added every day. So, just for you, I have decided to list all the ones I can think of...

Biggles, Baggles, Boggles, Bagglesworth, Bigglesworth, Biggleswade, Biggleton, Bigglepops, Baggleton, Baggins, Pauly Pauly Pigglepops, Snatchy, Thatchy, Patchy, Streaky, Leaky, Beaky, Beaker, Piggy, Pagu, Milky, Milky Biggin, the Milkman, Slugger, Slugworth, Sneaky Biggin, Champ.

If anyone can match that, there's a very special prize in store...

Baggles

Second show syndrome

Hello.

We had our second show last night and it was our first sell out, which was lovely.

It didn't feel like our best show as we were having some technical issues (the dreaded projector failure...) that needed fixing so we went up a bit late. We'd also swapped things around in the running order and we feel like we're still looking for the best version of the show and not quite found it yet. But that's what these previews are all about and after our last one tonight I'm sure we'll have the show locked down.

It tends to take about four or five performaces for us to hit our stride at the Fringe, but having full and enthusiastc houses is making things a lot easier. Most of these changes aren't things an audience would really notice, it's more about us tweaking and re-working until we feel like we've found the perfect version of the show, so we're doing it justice. Cos it is a show we're immensely proud of.

All this extra work means we still haven't seen any other shows yet, which we need to rectify as soon as we can as there's so many brilliant acts, old and new, that we're desperate to see this year. (Sheeps, Totally Tom, Colin Hoult, McNeil & Pamphilon, James Acaster... to name just a few).

Finally, a little plug. After tonight's show three of us are taking part in Lee's brainchild The Great Big Sketch Off which will be a fun, if under-rehearsed sketch comedy extravaganza. Tickets are still available if you fancy seeing your favourite sketch teams mixed up into random groups and given a day to come up with ten minutes of new material, or fall flat on their faces. Either way it'll be entertaining.

Hope to see you there!

x

The First Night...

So the first show went surprisingly well for a first night! Nice, big crowd and most of the sketches and songs seemed to work.

As we're still previewing for another two nights (tickets only a fiver!) we're still in the finding our gimp feet stage so we're rehearsing and tweaking this afternoon: playing with running orders, finding new punchlines, editing Paul out of the show, etc. But I reckon it was about a 7/10, which is good for a first night.

After the show, once we'd towelled ourselves down from the sweat drenching we'd given ourselves over the previous hour, the euphoria or surviving the first show carried us to the Just the Tonic party at The Caves, where we met up with the lovely Shappi Khorsandi, friend of the gimps and force to be reckoned with on the dance floor.

Matt Tizzle our techie was on a mission, and he quickly reached 100% humidity and 120% proof. My ears are still ringing this morning, not from the music... but from Tizzle's unique interpretation of previously popular floor-fillers.

To anyone we saw last night, we're sorry.

That's all.

Countdown...

Two days in Edinburgh and we're already straight into the swing of things. Sleeping very little... panicking about the show... drinking till late... and getting soaked in the rain. But it's great to be back.

Yesterday we had a mammoth tech run which, while stressful, gave a good indication of how the show will run in the venue. Our show this year is much, much more technical than last year's which brings all kinds of new and head-scratching challenges and nervous clock-watching in the tech run. Luckily we have our trustee technical gimp Matt Tizzle with us for the first week (before he returns to London as he has "a dog"... "a wife" and "a life", apparently). The staff at our venue were also massively helpful and accommodating, so a big thank you to the Pleasance Above team.

Then we set off on the traditional props and costume buying mission, raiding all the pound shops and bargain stores Edinburgh has to offer. We managed to find a baby that looks exactly like Matt, so we bought it. As you do. I can't decide who looks more like Matt now, the baby or himself...?

In the evening Steve our legendary director took us all out for a curry, after which we came home and blocked all the toilets. (sorry)

The looming deadline is now very much in sight and whatever happens, the show has to be ready by tomorrow. Our first night. 10:30pm Pleasance Courtyard. Hope to see some of you there...

Good luck everybody.

david

Oh Hello again...

Haven't done this in a while have we?

Well fear not... we are well and truly back in the blogosphere.

We've arrived in Edinburgh and our flat "the gimp-house" is genuinely amazing. For the first time we won't have to share beds at the Fringe (I've woken up next to Richard's face one too many times...) and our flat includes some incredible and unique design features...

a telescope.

a giant lava lamp.

a painting of a child angel of death.

... and a larder that looks into the shower.

All true.

So stay tuned people, as we document what should be another chaotic, exciting and hopefully succesful Edinburgh Fringe. We'll be blogging every day and video blogging as much as we can too.

Better go now... we're up at half six for our technical rehearsal.

We open in three days!

david.