Week in Edinburgh.

(Mock the Week - that was the warm-up guy from when we went. Did someone drop out? I ask that only partly because I thought he wasn't great, and also because it seems a bit of a steep curve to go from warming up to being a guest in one week.)

First of all, the queuing at the Pleasance bits was great. There were signs saying where queues started from and what they were for, and I loved them hard. As I was on my own, and for a variety of reasons having a bit of a weird time brain-wise, I found it a bit stressful between shows because there often wasn't somewhere I could just sit and read, and I wasn't coping so well with the crowds so I didn't eat very well, or at all some days, because I couldn't manage buying food, but at least the queuing was good.

Secondly, I was a little bit fuming at one point (while in one of the well-managed queues) because there I was in Edinburgh during the festivals, with lots of really awesome people also there, and I had not seen a single great person even in the distance (though I wasn't wearing my glasses and wouldn't have seen them had they been there), but Neil and Christine Hamilton walked past very close to me TWICE. The bastards. Though then I did see Armando Iannunci watching Stewart Lee's show, and Mel Giedroyc leaving afterwards, so that soothed me somewhat.

Because I am constitutionally incapable of not having a plan and a reasonable expectation that the plan will be workable, I'd mostly booked tickets quite a long time before I got there, and then once I was there and sort of knew what was where I chose various things to fill in the gaps. It was split between individual comedians who I liked, and sort of compilation type things to see what there was other than "people Clare has probably seen on TV".

Individual comedians:

( Jon Richardson )

( Simon Amstell )

( Kirsten O'Brien )

( Laurence Clark )

( Shappi Khorsandi )

( Stewart Lee )

( Russell Howard )

( Wil Hodgson )

Compilation type things where I didn't know who'd be there:

( The Comedy Zone )

( Best of Irish Comedy )

( Big Value Late Show )

( Best of Edinburgh Comedy - The Showcase Show )

And then things that aren't really showcases but had lots of people in them:

( The Book Club )

( Early Edition )

( Matt Forde's On Heat )

( Janey Godley's Chat Show )

( Full Mooners )

I saw ( Shakespeare Bingo. )

I also got to stay with my friend T, whom I haven't seen properly since we finished the MA, and catch up and talk about feminism, mental illness and singing. I'm going up again in October to see her first gig - she's a jazz singer. And during the week I went bookshopping with pisica, who is an excellent guide for this sort of excursion. Well done Edinburgh.