6096/19025
Another strong RHLSTP today with the funny and inventive Rob Auton and the marvellous and naughty Lost Voice Guy. You can find out why it was good by
listening here.
After the show, one of the (absolutely excellent) crew at the New Town Theatre told me that I had had a very quick walkout. I introduce the show by a different acronym every day (it’s the hardest bit of the prep coming up with this and some new cool kids on a daily basis) and because of a running theme about news items warning women not to put things up their vaginas, I decided to call ti Richard Herring’s “Let’s Stuff Twats” Podcast and claimed we were going to insert a different item into a vagina each day and then ring an expert to see if they thought it was a good idea.
This was too much for a family with some teenage kids with them - I don’t know if they genuinely thought that this was about to happen - who left (I may have heard the noise thinking about it, but assumed it was latecomers rather than earlyleavers) and told the Front of House staff that they were appalled and going to the police. Which seemed like an extreme reaction to a joke, but here we are in 2019.
They did though leave the theatre and walk right past two police officers, so maybe it was just bluster. Or maybe they couldn’t talk to lower ranking officers as they couldn’t bring themselves to say the first syllable of constable - they’d have to go to prison themselves.
Anyway, I have gone on the run to escape prosecution. And everyone else in the Fringe has been imprisoned and put in concentration camp. And the worst punishment of all is that they have to spend the rest of their lives in the company of each other. Imagine the battle to be the ones to put on the morale boosting shows. And how annoyed all the audience will be that they're not the ones on stage.
And then I had my first solo time off since I’ve got up here and went to see tomorrow’s guest Bryony Kimmings performing her astonishing show, I’m a Phoenix, Bitch. It’s very hard to describe how amazing this show is and I think it will take a long time to process, but it’s the closest I have ever seen theatre get to someone inviting you into their head to share their personal madness. And the staging is phenomenal and almost magical in places. Bryony is clearly a very funny person as the early sections of the show prove, but it’s a heart-rending and emotional story about post-natal depression, losing love and almost losing a child, so it’s not exactly a laugh-fest. So many acts up here have made me question why I bother trying, but none more so than this. Obviously I am very much a transgressive performance artist too, but at times this show made me feel that playing snooker against myself and moving stones around is just pathetic. I was very glad that I saw her show before talking to her, but am struggling to think about how to discuss her work with her, due to me being poorly equipped to do so. But she seems down to earth in spite of her phenomenal talent, so hopefully it will be OK.
