festivals #16

this is one of the press boards outside the assembly rooms - loads of (positive) reviews about the venue's shows are pasted up here (some of which i have subbed, happy reading!). if the show you're thinking of going to isn't on the press board at the appropriate venue, i'd check online to see what reviews it did get before you buy your ticket...

i bought one more ticket today, to see antonio forcione who is bloody marvellous. it rather brought home to me a) how long i've been coming to the fringe and b) a major reason i see hardly any shows these days: it was £13. now, i know AF is utterly brilliant, but at the same time, i also know that a show advertised as being an hour long is often more like 50 minutes due to turnaround and trying to keep to the scheduling. i also remember not so many years ago when i paid less than a tenner to see him.

many moons ago, when i first came to the fests, i was paying maximum a fiver for fairly big-name comedians and could thus afford to see several shows a day for a week and really soak up the fringe. yes, things are more expensive in general than ten years ago - but what else is now twice the price or more than it was in 1998? and if all it means is i'm getting posh flyers (as that seems the only change), i'd rather have those crappy photocopied things and pay a bit less! i think there should be a residents' discount: live within a certain geographical area and you get one-third off, or something. it might also make up for our city being uninhabitable for four weeks of the year...