some more random pics from edinburgh...

the Royal Mile in full swing



don't even know what this building is but it looks pretty amazing all lit up at night!



some dodgy person hanging around in a spooky alleyway : )



yummy shepherds pie at the Monster mash (eat your heart out martin parr!)



the first punter for the season at st george's west - we gave her a piece of cake to celebrate!

celebrity sitings at st george's west

of course the most important question to be asked about the edinburgh festival - how many celebrities did you see?

1. kylie



yes, that kylie.

she rocked up to good ole st george's west one night for the havana rumba show (cuban music and dancing). she had a bit of a dance around on stage, hung around and chatted to the dancers a bit afterwards, then disappeared into the night. bri (stage manager) told her to get out of the backstage area (until she realised who she was). mike (production manager) wouldn't let her up on stage coz he didn't know who she was at all (he's american). andrew our publicist almost fainted when he saw her, he was on the phone to the newsdesks until at least 3am. our director took this photo and it ended up in loads of newspapers across the UK... bizarre!
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=631&id=1141762006

2. mandy from hollyoaks



i have absolutely no idea who this chick is but apparently she's famous in the UK for being in a soapie called hollyoaks (sort of like brit neighbours). she came a few days after kylie to the same show - i reckon she was trying to get on the same publicity bandwagon.

3. miranda from sex and the city



my personal favourite. cynthia (her actual name) showed up with her girlfriend looking pretty shoddy actually, greasy blonde hair, daggy clothes. she saw animal farm and congratulated gary the actor afterwards, which is nice. a few days later i saw her standing in the foyer looking really freaked out, turns out she and the gf had come to st george's to see a show that was actually back at the assembly rooms (about a 15 min walk away). she rushed out to the street, waving madly for a taxi, looking super-stressed. couldn't get a taxi at all, gf trying to calm her down loudly in the middle of the (busy) street. eventually tries to steal someone else's taxi but fails miserably. then runs off down the road.

4. sally phillips



from smack the pony (also bridget jones' diary). not really that exciting, but worth a mention.

5. tim brooke taylor

before



after



last but certainly not least, tim came along to see a couple of shows. he's looking decidedly wrinkly now, but still with an undeniable twinkle in the eye. i also met graeme garden at a party i went to one night. he introduced himself as graeme, and it wasn't until about 15 minutes later that i realised who he was. he was really boring, but i think he thought i was too. i went to see the retrospective show he and tim were doing, it was boring too.

some things are better left in the past.

william street

it wasn’t all work in edinburgh (although there was a lot of that)...

william street near st george's west was a pretty regular haunt and it was packed with great little places.

Our local pub was the Teucters – pronounced Tooke-terrs – which I always called the choo-choo coz I couldn't say it right. The barman knew more about whisky than i could ever hope to (although i never seemed to stray from Jamiesons!).



then there was also the Melville across the road, which has a pretty mean pub quiz night on thursdays. it was also the scene of a wild brawl one night (which i unfortunately did not witness) but i am told that there were even women in floral dresses punching each other out - brilliant!



niki's did the best bacon and egg roll for brekkie, woke me up many a morning...



and if we were feeling like being healthy, herbie's did great lunches - especially this yummy couscous and roasted vege salad... yum! also did pretty good coffee, which is bloody hard to come by in edinburgh.

life on the Fringe

well its all over! my first edinburgh fringe festival has come to a close and i have to say, it could actually send a person quite crazy.

here's the lowdown on how i spent most of my time...

so I worked as the venue manager of Assembly @ St George’s West, which is a satellite venue of Assembly Theatre, one of the biggest Fringe organisations in Edinburgh. here's the view from the front..



St George’s West is actually an operational church which is hired by Assembly for the fringe season and converted into a theatre venue. For the first time we had 2 theatres in our venue – the biggest was The Sanctuary, built into the church itself (the stage is built over the pulpit and the organ!). It seats about 470 people.

this is the stage being built in the Sanctuary during bump-in



here's a couple of shots of during performance





For any of you technical types, the rig in the Sanctuary was hung from 9 points in the ceiling of the church, through the holes made for the lights. Heres the riggers Colin and Harpo after coming down from the ceiling - we went to the pub straight afterwards!! (Colin is also the previous Production manager of St George's - an all-round legend and trouble maker!)



The other space was brand new this year, called Candlish Hall, a 100 seater theatre built from scratch in a completely bare room – complete with raked seating.

We had 11 companies performing in the whole venue, with all of them performing almost every day of the 25 day season. The shows were a crazy mix of theatre, music and comedy – including Russian clowns, American super-serious ac-torrrrs, English-hungarian fencers and a Dutch acapella man-band who performed one number in their show wearing skirts made of ties. Yes, it was a mad month.

check out the audiences waiting to come in - they had to queue out on the footpath!



We had a technical crew of about 10, front of house staff of 23 and a box office staff of 5...



here's the busy busy box office



Essentially my job was to make sure that everything was running well at St George’s, particularly the front of house, and to be a general problem-solver, back-slapper and occasional ass-kicker for the whole of the venue, staff and performing companies. It was pretty huge and pretty damn hectic, many loooooong days but lots of fun too. I worked with some great people and made some brilliant friends...



thats mike, lovely production manager and yank (but dont hold that against him) (heehee sorry mike)



On the left, Nora – Front of House Manager - totally gorgeous girl, so funny and completely mad and an actual Edinburgh local (they were rare on assembly staff) with a brialliant accent. Also has a knack at eating any food within reach, and does a mean impression of a yeti. Then Darren, Front of house staffer, an irish boy with the quickest wit this side of the black stump, regularly had me in tears of laughter. Then Andrew, our resident Press Officer and wicked gossip monger. Don’t let his sweet innocent face fool you! He cuts a mean figure on the dance floor and is totally addicted to crisps (or chips in oz language). Then James, classic London geezer, drinking partner and trouble maker, with a permanent seat in the Lane bar, Club bar and of course the Spiegeltent.

this was olivia's mini birthday party in the venue office



So there you have it - Edinburgh was certainly intense, lots of work, but lots of fun too...

L x

och aye, its Auld Reekie

Well, I've arrived safe and well in Edinburgh... can't believe I've been here for two weeks already. The plane flight was pretty torturous, beginning with the 'suspicious package' found at adelaide airport that delayed my flight by 3 or so hours (of course it was nothing in the end). Flew straight through to Edinburgh, arriving bright and early on a Monday morning and with the most ridiculously swollen legs ever (think elephantitus of the ankles - truly disgusting).

Spent first few nights in a hostel, it was a great one - 20GBP for my own room an absolute bargain. Shame about the beer garden up the road that was holding regular boozy screenings of the World Cup, resulting in the occasional dumpster-upturning beneath my window in the middle of the night...

Last Saturday Bri and I moved into our flat... yay! Its just behind Calton Hill, about 15 minutes walk from the city centre. We're sorta house sitting for a bunch of aussie girls - none above the age of about 22 - who have headed off into a camper van for a few months to drive to portugal (hope someone tells them there's a bit of water inbetween). These chicks were seriously mingin (that's UK speak for dirty) (i mean dirty like as in not clean) (oh you know what i mean - matt this is your fault!!) Of course the flat was left in a pretty unfortunate state - my idea was to get a hose in and just spray the place down (bri wasn't so keen). Nothing that a few hundred hours of scrubbing couldn't fix. But, the rent is mega cheap (for the Ed summer anyway) and its close, so happy days...

here's the outside (the blue door is the entrance to the flats)



and the lounge



We of course made the obligatory trip to Ikea to help set up house...



rental flats over here are almost all fully furnished - wierd - but great, otherwise we'd be sleeping on the floor.

As for work, I have managed to win the job as Venue Manager for Assembly @ St George's West, an Edinburgh Fringe Festival venue hosting a bunch of shows. It's actually a church (which will still hold services on top of the stage on Sundays yikes) and its houses 2 Fringe venues, The Sanctuary and Candlish Hall. Check out the link for the list of the shows. Bri will be the Stage Manager for the venue too - we're hoping for some salsa lessons from the latin dancing people!! I start next Monday 10th July, and will work through til mid September. (Was hoping for another week to play in Edinburgh before starting work, but thems the breaks!) Should be a great gig, I'm very excited! (but quietly freaking too)

But to much more important things - the food. Its way better than I expected, but the Scots do love a bit of potato. Haven't ventured to black pudding or haggis world yet, but I have vowed that I will. (Apparently haggis is actually pretty good). Had dinner at the city Mosque with Bri and her brother Robin, a brilliant chicken curry for less than a fiver - yum! They will also deepfry anything not nailed down - mars bars, even haggis and even cheeseburgers! WTF! There's the old alcohol-in-the-supermarket trap to deal with too... gotta love it, but way dangerous.

Fave city fact so far? Edinburgh's nickname "Auld Reekie" which comes from back in the days when the city sanitation was so bad that you could smell the place from miles away. Luckily things are a bit better now... although the tourist season is only just beginning...

xx