The Angry Show & Jigsaw

I met up with Richard at The Albany, and we went downstairs, eventually to be joined by Bob, Laura, and Simon. We got downstairs fairly soon. Luckily we had beers as it turns out the Albany don't open their downstairs bar till the last minute which was rather annoying.

The first act were a double act. Well, they weren't and they were very keen to point that out. I imagine they are booking shows together to save costs in Edinburgh. Anyway, the guy was an impressionist and the girl did musical comedy. I have, unfortunately completely forgotten their names. Do people still do impressions these days? I guess they must do. Apart from a pretty good Michael McIntyre, a lot of his stuff was pretty dated. I mean, is Roy Walker cutting edge? I wasn't a huge fan. The female half of the non-double act came on and did some pretty funny songs. Not to the standard of Tara Flynn of course (If you're going to see one piece of musical comedy at The Fringe this year, make it Tara's!), and it ended with both of them together doing a song involving Jeremy Kyle, which was actually pretty funny.

Next up was an extremely long interval. It must have been close to half an hour as we waited for Jigsaw to arrive. Jigsaw are a 3 piece sketch act featuring Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema. They had another gig in Camden earlier and arrived very late. I wasn't aware of the other two, but have seen Dan a few times and he is always very very good. (You know, he did the "hedgehog" joke... )

The sketches were fast paced, with very few of them lasting more than 30 seconds or so, which meant the laughs were pretty continuous. So, Jigsaw are an act I would definitely advise any Fringe attendees to go to.

There was a short break (thankfully) and next we were shown a film by The Segue Sisters. Well, I didn't really get it. 3 women, singing rock songs in a "Sheila's Wheels" style. That was about it really. Al Murray was in the video, but I'm not sure why. Maybe if you see them perform it'll all make sense?

The compere came back on to introduce Robin and Michael's "Pointless Anger: Righteous Ire" show and was immediately terrified by Michael pushing a piano through the curtains. If you're ever in a room that contains Michael Legge and a piano, or any other form of keyboard instrument you are pretty much guaranteed a game attempt at "Just Can't Get Enough" and if you're lucky, the Eastenders theme, both of which we got tonight, when Robin demanded that Michael play him a song.

Robin with "Brian Cox"

Michael had had words with the impressionist before Robin arrived and got him on stage before walking off leaving him to speak to Robin as sexy scientist, Brian Cox. Did it work? I'm not sure, but it definitely happened.

The show was fairly short tonight and there was only time to get one issue resolved which was people with allergies. I think we all decided we hated people with allergies.

Robin also berated Jigsaw for their late arrival and about Dan forming a sketch group with much younger cooler comedians.

The show ended with Michael playing a song for Robin, before Robin left the stage, abandoning Michael, and shouting at him to play it better. Michael persuaded the girl from earlier to come up and play, which she rather nervously did, before, of course, Michael abandoning her too, leaving her on stage tinkling her ivories (not a euphemism)

She finally stopped before being told very loudly from Michael and Robin to keep going, and the compere was pretty confused too as he couldn't tell if the show had ended. An unusual end to the show and left us all feeling as if we were going over a humpback bridge in a car. Which I'm sure you'll agree is a lovely feeling.

After the show Simon and I went upstairs where he swooned over the compere (which I didn't understand at all!) and I swooned, and indeed made inappropriate remarks to his rather dishy friend. I think all gigs should end like this.

And it turns out that if I had some coke, he would have.