IN TERMS of sheer dread, the thought of going through to Edinburgh for the Festival is right up there with being dragged along by your better half to visit her mother on a Saturday afternoon and listen to the old bat wearing out the cobblestones of memory lane with her nostalgic stories of community spirit.
“You could leave your front door ajar and nobody would steal anything,” she sighs. Given the grinding poverty she allegedly endured, a thief who managed to somehow overcome the security afforded by an open door would have had trouble filling the smallest of swag bags.
As a Weegie, a trip to the country’s capital of all things arty-farty brings to the surface my latent Philistinism. However, my squeeze has evolved into something of a culture vulture. Thus I found myself walking along Princes Street and experiencing several bouts of pavement rage, thanks to being bumped and nudged by the cosmopolitan mob hurriedly heading nowhere in particular. Walking up Auld Reekie’s very own Via Dolorosa, that is, the Playfair Steps, was energy sapping, the steep ascent made more difficult by having to hurdle the occasional prone down-and-out.
Strolling the Royal Mile, I quickly tired of pushy promotional staff thrusting unwanted flyers into my hand; I actually longed to be promenading down Sauchiehall Street and being pleasantly harassed by smiling, ADHD-afflicted charity muggers.
Hearing tightrope artists and other sundry street performers utter the same “funny” lines I’d heard last year – and the year before that – darkened my mood. To be fair, I did laugh out loud when a sword swallower asked the audience to cough up a fiver or a tenner for an act that was a major contribution to the demise of Britain’s great music hall tradition. If he ever takes his gag-reflex-defying talent to the beaches of Marmaris, he will be able to spend the three Turkish liras I casually tossed into his cap.
Fortunately, as we sauntered on, the white noise of an American a capella ensemble outside Deacon Brodie’s pub began to fade. I had tickets to see I, Tommy, a play about the rise and fall of Tommy Sheridan, an erstwhile acquaintance of mine. Des McLean looked and spoke like The Great Orator; indeed, there were times I thought it was Tommy on the stage. The production poked fun at Sheridan’s downfall, but only a fool would deny that Scottish politics is poorer without him (and much improved without Rosie Kane).
After splashing out £28 for the two tickets – my poppet says she would never insult me by offering to pay – I did not possess the wherewithal to see former teachers who are making an impact at the Fringe. In Rogue Teacher, Mark Grist, a former English teacher, showcases his wordsmith skills by way of droll performance poetry (if you are expecting whimsical Pam Ayres-style verses you will be disappointed). In his Geography Teacher show, Mark Cooper-Jones aims to “reinforce the stereotypes surrounding this most fabled of professions”. Anyone arriving late better have a note from their mum.
It doesn’t surprise me that teaching provides a rich seam of comedy gold. Since leaving the classroom, my daily guffaw count has decreased dramatically and I am no longer able to regale my Friday night drinking buddies with the week’s amusing tales of interfaces with young people.
Fortunately, my friends were present when I was buttonholed recently in Tennant’s bar by two ex-pupils. On introducing himself, the young man felt it necessary to proudly inform me that he was gay. Perhaps, mistakenly, he thought I’d come of out of the jotter closet wearing nothing but my mortarboard and lycra shorts.
His acquaintance, a young woman suffering from a severe case of outlandish back-combing, announced she was a hairdresser whom I’d wrongly given 100 lines for talking in class. Initially, this alleged gross miscarriage of justice received my mates’ sympathy, but the more she chattered like a chimp on methyl nitrate, the more she vindicated my original verdict.
I hanker for the staffroom gallows humour that made teaching bearable. The lunch break, or rather, the respite interlude, was usually a hoot; in the absence of Prozac, laughter was indeed the best medicine. If anyone manages to capture that humour in a Fringe production, I’ll crawl through to Edinburgh to watch it.