One of the big talking points this year at the Edinburgh Fringe is the male version of the Vagina Monologues - a show poetically titled Talking Cock presented by Richard Herring of Herring and Lee comedy duo fame. Brian Boyd on what's happening comedy-wise on the Edinburgh Fringe.
Yes, you too can get in touch with your inner love pump and discover the answers to such vital questions as "What can you do when getting hard is getting harder?" and "Would men rather lose a leg than their penis?" Jauntily executed - and Herring keeps it up for an hour (ha, ha) - the show is based on an extensive Internet questionnaire where men talked openly about their penises. There's also some material on Freud (obviously), a bit about a "phallological" museum (which is in Iceland, if you're interested) and plenty of fun at men's expense. And wouldn't you think some enterprising promoter out there would have the sense to put this show as a double bill with The Vagina Monologues and call it "The Genital Dialogue"? Just an idea.
Penises were a bit of a feature this year with the Puppetry of the Penis boys back in town. These two Aussie dudes, you'll remember, practice the ancient art of genital origami - basically they manipulate their genitals to create impressions of things like a hamburger or the Eiffel tower. With overhead screens projecting the action, you don't miss a trick here. And believe me, you haven't lived until you've seen their impression of a wristwatch. People are still having nightmares about this.
Remarkably, or maybe not, there are now 10 touring versions of this show working their way around the world, much to the chagrin of the upper tiers of the arts world. The Puppetry boys have really annoyed all the RADA-trained actors who come up to the Fringe with their Beckett and Pinter shows (and years spent learning their "craft") because just by waving their willies around on stage they get much better reviews and make tons more money. They really should be debating this on that Late Night Review show on BBC2.
For a while there in the mid 1990s, the Perrier Prize (awarded annually to the best show on the Fringe, and now rivalled by the Tap Water award - set up in objection to Perrier's links with Nestlé - was as easy for the Irish to win as the Eurovision contest. Nominees have included Graham Norton, Ed Byrne, Owen O'Neill and Jason Byrne, and Sean Hughes, Dylan Moran and Tommy Tiernan have all won it. This year's hopes are high for both Dara O'Briain and David Doherty, who have both already made an impression on the Perrier judges (a panel of comedy journalists).
O'Briain's show, which has already sold out its entire run, such is the word-of-mouth, is based on the death earlier this year of his 100-year-old grandmother. Running through her involvement in the War of Independence and the drama of her funeral, he has fashioned a very strong piece of work. It may, or may not, help that O'Briain's venue this year is the "lucky room" - the same venue both the League of Gentlemen and Tommy Tiernan had when they won the Perrier.
David O'Doherty's Small Things show takes place in the cellars of the Guilded Balloon theatre. The venue, they say, is believed to be haunted and so far at least one act has pulled out from playing the venue, saying she was too terrified to continue. O'Doherty, though, is proving fearless, and with his little Casio keyboard, he presents a charming mix of songs and banter, all loosely based on the theme of his girlfriend leaving him.
Elsewhere, Deirdre O'Kane is winning over a whole new bunch of fans with her rollicking show down in the Pleasance Dome but Cork comic Michael Mee took a bit of a battering from the Scotsman newspaper in its review of his show.
In to see our favourite Barnsley comic, Daniel Kitson, where a strange story unfolded. Talking to a member of the audience, who was a surveyor, Kitson asked him what his favourite building was. "The Guggenheim in Bilbao" replied the surveyor.
Discovering that the man had never been to see Frank Gehry's architectural masterpiece, Kitson organised a "whip-round" on the spot and the next morning the surveyor was flying out of Edinburgh to Bilbao. "The magic of the Fringe," according to Kitson.
And those, for the moment, are just the printable stories.
