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I think I am only going to be seeing kids' shows from now on this Fringe, but we caught a fun one today with
Senor Baffo, a one-man show about a chef's assistant who is very stupid and messes up the kitchen on a day when the chef is ill. It's a story as old as time.
There was lots of interaction and Ernie was very keen to get involved, at one point shouting out "it's like Ratatouille" when the man put on his chef's hat and the character asked him to keep quiet as they couldn't afford to be sued by Disney. He was very good and dealt with the kids and my hyper son very well. And there was lots of good prat falls and stupidity.
Ernie got on stage once to take part in an air guitar band and another time, uninvited, when he helped pick up some meatballs that had fallen all over the stage. He also did two stage dives. He's not shy. At least not on stage. He is just a mini me.
Phoebe also had one of her shoes taken for a recipe and impressively the chef did not give it back during the show or refer to it again. But the stage hands pretended to be surprised to find it in the oven and gave it back.
It feels like those working hardest in town are those that get the least appreciation. This fella worked his socks and my daughter's shoe off to entertain the maybe 20 kids who had turned up. Most of whom were way too young to remember any of it. But they were very cute accomplices for him.
Then on to the Stand 3 where Ernie was going to make his Fringe debut by doing some jokes at the start of my show. This could have gone a number of ways as Ernie is an unpredictable force of nature and this whole thing was really only happening to solve a family argument and it didn't seem fair to bring everyone else into it.
He did a great job though. He seemed to have no nerves and clearly delivered the two jokes he'd ripped off of Olaf Falafel (who I did credit) and his squirrel and nuts jokes, which he added to by saying his dad only had one nut. I thought it was only fair that Ernie was heckled given his behaviour in everyone else's show and Phoebe was only too happy to do so, asking why he didn't write his own jokes.
It was (I hope) charming, rather than embarrassing and Ernie got a huge response from the crowd which made it tricky for guest Andy Parsons to follow. Luckily he coped.
It was a really fun chat with my former housemate and Radio 4 double act rival (though he remembered Armando Iannucci trying to create a radio show involving Parsons and Naylor and Lee and Herring, which we all resisted as we thought it would look too much like the Mary Whitehouse Experience - I do not remember this at all).
Phoebe and Ernie were at the exit of the show and both signed autographs for their fans. More than one person told Ernie he was funnier than his dad. A lot more than one person.
We then went 10 pin bowling where I wiped the floor with the pair of them. In our first game I got three strikes in the first four turns and at least 9 pins on every go. I had to put these big heads back in their place. Thinking they are funnier than me. Correctly, but that's not the point.
Phoebe did her second and final performance of this Fringe with her mum and we went home, watched Malcolm in the Middle and I fell asleep at 8pm (better than last night when it was 7.30pm). It's a tough schedule and the days of late night fun at the Fringe are definitely over for me. I am glad I am only doing another week and might struggle to get through that, but it's been surprisingly OK so far.
