The final day

The final day of the fringe, and my final day in Edinburgh. <sob>

I started off at the Gilded Balloon (which I’ve been leaning to more frequently towards the end – 10 of the 16 times I’ve been here have been in the past 5 days) with Girl Constantly F***ing Interrupted, Caroline Peachey’s one-woman show about trying to coming to terms with the murder of her mother (in both character and, from reading the flyer we were given before the show, in real life). The character, Faith, has multiple personality disorder, and over the hour we see some of the inner and outward struggles someone in such a horrible situation is going through, but ultimately ending with hope for the future and the realisation that perhaps life is simply what you make of it.

Another one-woman quasi-autobiographical, yet quite different, production followed, with Long Live the King at the Assembly George Street. This told the story of Ansuya Nathan’s parents (though I did not realise this at the time), of their move to Australia when pregnant with her on the same day as Elvis Presley died. A very moving tale of integration and upheaval, with some excellent Elvis impressions and poignantly relevant soundtrack.

Lastly, was Bec Hill, who Didn’t Want To Play Your Stupid Game Anyway – her flyering of the Gilded Balloon 25th anniversary queue the night before paid off! From a marvellous advert for tampons (I really pity marketing executives who came up with the “jokes” we were told about) to what must be one of the best puns of the fringe based around a rule of grammer (okay, one of the best puns of the fringe at all), accompanied by lovely use of an A2 pad (always a winner in my book), this was a lovely show with which to finish my Edinburgh Fringe, on the theme of encroaching adulthood and extolling us not to forget our inner child – and given I’ve just spent a month doing basically nothing but that, I heartily concur 😉

And so all good things must come to an end. I’ve seen 136 shows in 27 days, which I’m not sure is any sort of record, but certainly seems like quite a lot to me – and I’ve always managed to get home by midnight apart from on the Frisky and Mannish School of Pop night 🙂 I’ve written, if not reviews, then summaries of all I’ve seen, mostly so that in the time to come I can actually remember what I did see, and I hope it’s been of interest to some people out there. This has been an extraordinary month, one I feel very lucky to have been able to do, and in customary end of show fashion, I wish to thank everyone involved with any part of the fringe – it’s all been completely marvellous and wonderful, without hiccup. Special mention must go to my sister and a friend for putting me up for the last four weeks, even if they hardly saw me; Helen Keen and Miriam Underhill who I bumped into yet again, were incredibly lovely, and shared a congratulatory end-of-fringe drink; and Twitter, without which my time up here would have been much more lonely, and I wouldn’t have got tickets for Tim Minchin.

If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to write below; I’m off back to Birmingham on the 10am train in the morning, when I imagine it’ll be some time before things seem normal again.