Edinburgh 2010 - Day 5

It was Wednesday. It has been Wednesday on many occasions, and (hopefully) there will be many more. Despite the stupid spelling.

Stupid Wōden.
I set my alarm and got up early. But unlike the usual misery of early mornings (for work, exams, Christmas, farming etc) the mood was a positive one. Because it was time to see Daniel Kitson.

As part of his ongoing desire to alienate anyone who might not like him, his show started at 10am. There was also something exciting and illicit about going to a show this early, buying coffee and eagerly anticipating my secret liaison with Mr Kitson: just him, me and a few hundred other people.

Which reminds me, I realised this morning that on the list of guidelines we have pinned to the bathroom door in this flat (detailing how to work the shower, why we shouldn't make toast in the bath and so on), there's a bit of cleaning advice, suggesting we use Illicit Bang.

That's right: Illicit Bang.

I thought this must have been either a joke, or be referring to some black market Cillit Bang alternative. But the purple bottle they describe was indeed Cillit Bang. It was just a mistake. An understandable spell-check error.

But I'd still like to use Illicit Bang. Perhaps by using a cannon in an old peoples' home, or organising an orgy in a fire extinguisher.

Of course, the error could have been worse. If I'd been asked to use Clit Bang, I really wouldn't know what to do.

Anyway, back to Kitson (or Danny K, as I have never considered calling him). His stage set-up was beautiful, just a wooden chair and stepladder, and about twenty naked light bulbs hanging from the ceiling at varying lengths and positions around the stage. In the show, each bulb represented a particular moment in time (and would brighten as he spoke about it).

It was a really great show - a story rather than stand-up, but still really funny. It was ambitious, but totally worked, and I felt emotionally drained as I limped out into the morning air. And hungry.

Kitson is my favourite comedian, and his stand-up is just as moving as his story shows. I recommend going to see him if you can track him down. He is aloof, but sometimes you can follow his trail: straggly beard hairs, Belle & Sebastian albums, and debris from a thousand quips. Follow the scent and you'll get to the promised land.

After a quiet afternoon, it was gig time again. The crowd was a bit smaller than the previous day, but were really great and up for everything. The final member of our group, Tom Greeves, arrived and it was great to have everyone together. I think we all had a lot of fun, and there was a really good atmosphere (with lots of teasing, silliness and abuse).

I did my bit about this blog and the Headscissors fetish, which I've only done once before, and it went down really well.

After the gig, we were going to go on a ghost walk, but a combination of expense and fatigue meant that we opted out. Which was probably a disappointment to the ghosts. I think they would have enjoyed terrifying us. But then, they hadn't been doing any flyering, so can't really complain.

Of course, the ghosts may indeed have been flyering, but invisible marketing isn't always the best way to draw crowds.

So that was Wednesday. It's weird that we're nearly half-way through our run.

Maybe I'll get working on a routine about Illicit Bang, and think of other cleaning products with sexual overtones (Flash, Mr Muscle, Cif). On the other hand: I won't do that.