Poor #edfringe. Mr Butterworth (and a bit of effort from Sam Mandes) took your riotous cacophonous glory of inventiveness and aced you. Resoundingly. 

Unfair given the budgets / set up time involved for the respective offerings. But life isn't fair.

It would be worth putting yourself out for this.

(I should have published this two weeks ago but somehow forgot!)

One month on from our closing night and it feels like about a hundred years. 

I think I saw at least one show most days, with many thanks to the Wee Review and some smaller portion of my own money! On favourite weekend days, I'd see four or five. So no wonder time bends and enters a parallel track where a good day is so full to bursting with good and interesting and beautiful thoughts that it could be a month in real time.

I haven't really written anything of my show itself. Beyond feverishly sharing any old (most old) reviews of it. Which isn't anything to do with how little or how much I loved it (much) and all to do with how many words I was pouring into reviewing. 

But I did love it. 

I was certainly spoilt with an abundance of marvellous shows. I'm most grateful to Mark Gorman for pointing me towards Border Tales at Summerhall. I'm most grateful to Mr Peacock for having One Step Before The Fall on his hitlist. Without that, I wouldn't have seen Fagin's Twist which was apparently the best (Fringe?) show that Miriam had ever seen and was certainly brilliant and inventive and executed with perfect energy and panache. 

I did like Last Resort, the sort of parody of Guantanamo Bay by 2Magpies Theatre. I did like The Sky Is Safe by Dogstar. A lot. I loved (can't spell them) Oetroerund Goed's LIES. I loved Jess and Joe Forever. Admired Adam at the Traverse more than I liked it. And The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk was a piece of colourful and metaphorically sparkly magic.

I mainly regret not being organised enough to get tickets for the kids to see Circa's Humans but someone darkly said it was "quite an adult show" so maybe it's for the best. And it meant that instead I lurked fuming inside outside the EICC for too long, waiting for child incompetence to join me in the queue for Cirkopolis. It was more or less entirely worth it for the visual spectacle (and the tricks) though when the house stunk of teenage perfume Charlie for the ensuing two days, I did sometimes briefly wonder if it really had.

I veer between thinking my early shows were my favourites but then I worry that this is only a reflection of 'hooray for the Fringe being back'. The late ones linger longer in my memory (crazy Monkey See Monkey Do, wonderful kind Jamie O, self indulgent Jarvis Cocker, THE NARRATOR). 

I think my favourite (most enjoyed, most admired, most different) show, aside from mine own, was Ellie Dubois' No Show at Summerhall. That was a little bit audacious, a lot thrilling, quasi political and thus eminently, Of The Fringe. I hope she / they come back next year with something new.