Well, there's good news and there is bad news. The good news is that Alan survived his 'Mad Chris' Ibiza holiday. The fundamental reason he survived is because he did not go. The bad news (for myself and Tony and all other fans) is that Bert Jansch cancelled his concert last weekend and instead the pair of us got roped into going to a nightclub. This Saturday was an altogether more cultured affair. First stop was Isy Suttie: Pearl and Dave at The Pleasance Courtyard. Isy Suttie turned out to be a strangely attractive, slightly offbeat but likeable English comedian and actress who bounded onstage with a guitar and an appealing smile. Through a mixture of music, storytelling and comedy she told the whimsical story of 'Pearl and Dave', two characters who reconnect on the internet a few years after failing to act on the mutual attraction they experience the first time they meet at a holiday resort in the mid 1990's. My friend Tony felt that the story of Pearl and Dave began to wear a bit thin after a while, and I guess he had a fair point, but I quite enjoyed how it all unfolded, despite the growing sense that these two characters were a figment of her imagination rather than the real people she claimed them to be. At the very least I think a lot of creative license was applied. Isy is a fairly accomplished guitarist but I agreed with Tony when he observed that all her songs sounded the same. That was probably the weakest part of her act but on the whole I found her performance entertaining and I particularly liked the way she drank from her bottle of mineral water. She would occassionaly pause to take a slug from it like a hard drinking Russian swigging down a bottle of Vodka. After a quick pint and oggling (great word) at the pretty bairmaids we tallied forth (great expression) to the Symposium Hall to see Dr Phil's Rude Health Show.
For some bizarre reason, which I can only attribute to my brain being frazzled at the sight of so many beautiful girls, I had an image in my mind of a big bearded guy with a pirates eye patch and white doctors coat. However I immediately recognised him as the celebrity doctor (he is a real doctor) who appears on various tv shows and writes articles for a satirical magazine called Private Eye. We were hoping that Dr Phil would not make too many medical injokes but we had sufficient knowledge of the NHS (National Health Service) and the human anatomy to enjoy his amusing and insightful observations on the subject. He also included plenty of funny, and occassionally rude, ancedotes from his experience as a practising doctor, so his health show was anything but dry and exclusive. We then had a disastrous chip shop supper: 1) a fish supper cost £7 (outrageous but to be expected at the Festival) 2) Alan ate chips and cheese which came back to haunt him 3) I ordered a smoked sausage supper and then shortly dropped the sausage onto the pavement. It's just as well I did not pay £7 for it. I was severely disgruntled as we arrived at the Assembly Hall for Andy Parsons: Gruntled. Everybody knows this comedian as the bald guy from Mock The Week, a satirical and irreverant quiz show in which the pannelists conjure comedy out of current affairs. The Assembly Hall was packed to capacity, which prompted Tony to make a good obsevation about the pulling power of television.
Andy Parsons is a decent comedian but it is unlikely he would have had this impressive turnout without his regular slot on Mock The Week. Much of his comedy sprang from what was happening in the world of politics and current affarirs, which I did not mind, but it probably alienated a certain part of the audience. It was an enjoyable hour but only once or twice did I laugh with any real gusto. We then weaved our way in a mad dash to the Surgeons Grand for Get Carter, our second play of the Festival. I have not seen the film, much to Alan's amazement, but I had a rough idea of the plot. Jack Carter returns to his hometown to investigate the mysterious death of his brother and in the process he gets drawn into a seedy violent underworld. It was a gritty, hard-hitting production that was not for the faint hearted. It had very strong language and full frontal nudity (we squirmed in our seats as Jack Carter brandished a sawn-off shotgun while wearing only his socks). The acting was very good, making me curse Shia LaBeouf all the more, and the direction flowed along well enough to keep the audience engrossed. The only major flaw of the play was that the identity of some of the characters became confusing. The director or screenwriter should have aimed for a happy medium of making it clearer who exactly was who without diluting the plot or slowing down the action. After the play we had plenty of time to kill until our 1.30AM bus back to Glasgow so we chilled Snoop Dog style in the Pleasance Courtyard with a few alcoholic refreshments. Ideally we would have taken a limousine home Snoop Dog style but we had to suffer the company of a particularly annoying drunken idiot who continually told all the passengers that the bus was not on the correct road to Glasgow. If I had been the driver I would have stopped the bus and tossed him onto the hard shoulder, no doubt to rapturous applause, but that did not happend because life is rarely that just or fair. So thanks to CityLink the Festival started poorly and ended poorly, but everything else inbetween was jolly good fun.
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