Edinburgh previews begin!

Have I over-Herringed myself? This was my 4th gig in 8 days. Still, this was a triple bill with 2 other fantastic comedians: Catie Wilkins and Lou Sanders. I had just seen Catie a couple of weeks ago at the Hen & Chickens and was looking forward to seeing her again. Lou does an occasional podcast with Catie and I had seen her on the same bill as her back in September but unfortunately it was a spur of the moment decision after I had been out in the afternoon and I was stupidly drunk. I do remember really enjoying it though (and I'm quite sure I would have done sober!) On reflection I should have gone home.

Anyway...

"Is that the menu?" - @tfb62

The Edinburgh preview season in June and July is my favourite time of year. As a bit of a nerd, I really enjoy seeing comedians trying out new material, some of which may work, some of which may bomb, and seeing the show change until it is in a fit state to take up to the festival. I'm actually less interested in the final set than watching it all slowly come together over the course of a few gigs. Richard had given us a short preview of the new show "What Is Love Anyway" at AIOTM last night and from the little material there was looks like this who could develop nicely.

I had arranged to meet Richard, Simon and Rob at The New Red Lion around 7:45 for the show to start at 8:00. Poor Rob had fallen asleep after a hard day of traffic reporting so we had to carry on without him.

Catie Wilkins

Catie performed for 40 minutes or so, slightly overrunning, but we can easily forgive her for that! Check my last blog for my blurb about her show in detail, but I still love the 'over bearing mother' joke. She ended the set by saying "Let's leave you with something fun" before checking her paper and saying "...errrm... no" which really tickled us! At the start of the set there was a rather annoying woman chatting at the bar which irritated me and probably most of the audience and certainly Catie. I don't know if she shut up or was asked to leave but either way it was sorted out eventually.

The dramatic Lou Sanders start

Lou Sanders was astonishingly good. It's only a matter of time surely till she is a household name (if there's any justice) She explained there wasn't much tech but to experience the opening of her Edinburgh show we should shut our eyes (as there was no way to plunge the venue into darkness) before galloping round the stage and having a huge party popper to open when the lights went up. The audience member she decided to speak to before the "Wheel of destiny" was Simon, who when he revealed he was a youth worker,  Lou took great points to let us all know that he wasn't a paedophile (even though she told us that she takes the piss out of comedians who do paedophile jokes!) Simon was also the star of her "This is your life" segment. This show is going to be great. It's unpredictable, slightly mental and absolutely hilarious!

Lou Sanders

Richard Herring was soon up to close the show. There wasn't mush new since the last time I had seen the preview of "What Is Love Anyway", but considering that was yesterday, it's not surprising. It looks like this show could be quite a different show from his recent ones, and the stories of his childhood loves brought a few "Awww"s from the audience. Due to his rather high work rate (touring his last show, "Christ On A Bike", writing a BBC script, AIOTM, and the Collings & Herrin podcast) there hasn't been a huge amount of progress on this yet, but the potential is there for a great show. The story of his first romance as a 10 year old and not being sure what to do, as well as the crush he had on an older girl from the safety of a bus is both lovely and funny and it will be very interesting to see how this show progresses.

Richard Herring

The new material was probably around 20 minutes or so, so he decided to do some old routines and started with his "I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire" routine. After this, he declared that he would try an older routine that he wasn't sure if he would remember. So this was the first time I had seen the "Give me head until I'm dead" routine (from 'Someone Likes Yoghurt'?) live, and was particularly good as he addressed a lot of it directly to my mate Richard, after asking him if he had ever experienced a blow job.

As I was leaving I said a brief goodbye to Catie & Richard (Lou had left a while ago) and said that it was good that he was putting different material into his "club" set. As I was walking home I thought this may have been misinterpreted and sent a message to Rich explaining what I meant. I was glad to find a reply on Twitter from Rich saying that it was what he thought I meant anyway. It's always good to end a gig with some slight awkwardness!