At the Fringe

I'm just back from a pleasant afternoon at Fringe Sunday. Fringe Sunday is the reason I come this weekend of the Festival rather than any other. The Meadows is taken over for the day by The Fringe. A number of big marquees spotlight shows which are on, each act getting ten or fifteen minutes, a small covered space has dance acts, there's a live stage, in the open spaces street performers do their thing (mainly variations on juggling and fire eating) and around the edges there's stalls selling food. Among the latter is my favourite: the cornish pasty stall that sells haggis and neeps pasties - how's that for fusion food!

So the score so far is that I saw two shows of Friday, one pretty dire, one very good (although my judgement may have been coloured by having just come out of the first one). Both were "free" - the first got £2 as I left, the other £10 which I think gives you a clue as to my thoughts on the two.

Saturday we watched "Forgotten Voices" at the Assembly Rooms. A professional cast for that one, and very moving it was too. We also saw "The Good, The Bad, and The Cuddly" which is again part of the free festival. I saw them last year too, although in fact only one of the three solo stand up acts that make up the hour's show was in it last time. Anyway that was good comedy in a tiny venue.

Today as well as Fringe Sunday I've wandered around the National Museum of Scotland - always value for money. And tonight it's off to see some more acts. More later.