It’s the fifth instalment of our tour diary, brought to you by Springfree Trampoline.  This week’s diary will cover our third week of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe.

17th August 2010 (Tuesday)

By the end of the festival we would have seen over double the shows we’ve actually played.  Although we’ll definitely play the Fringe again, we have no idea when that’ll be, so we decided early on that we weren’t just going to be at Fringe as performers, but also as tourists of comedy.  That’s why the blog this week mainly consists of us going to watch shows.  Also, it mainly consists of that because I forgot to update the blog as I went along.  My bad.

This day began with us saying farewell to our good friend Hugh Lashbrooke, who was leaving to explore Scotland a bit before heading back to South Africa.  We were going to have a farewell breakfast with him at The Doctors, but apparently The Doctors doesn’t exist purely to serve the needs of The Brothers Streep, so it wasn’t actually open when we needed it.  This meant moving breakfast to a place just up the road, which was disappointing, and more expensive, and so Hugh left Edinburgh in a bad mood, cursing his time in Scotland, and vowing to delete The Brothers Streep website when he got home.

None of the end of the previous sentence was true – breakfast was fine, and Hugh left on a happy note.  A note made even sweeter when we met David Mitchell whilst we were saying goodbye to him at the train station.

That evening we went to go watch Hannah Gadsby at the Assembly, then David O'Doherty at Pleasance.  I would highly recommend both shows, but I think Hannah’s show deserves special mention because it was incredibly funny and touching – I’m certain by the end of the show there would have been both tears of laughter and tears of Marley and Me proportions.

That evening we met comedian Steven K Amos in the Loft, and he surprisingly seemed to know who we were, and he invited us to be guests on his talk show at the Assembly later that week.  We also went to Late n Live, which featured Axis of Awesome – a band which is well known for their four chord song – a medley which proves the fact that most pop songs only use the same chord progression.

18th August 2010 (Wednesday)

I might be wrong, but I think this is the day we made an error in our show.  An error which I’m largely responsible for.

The great thing about playing a show every night is that you can really craft the show and figure out exactly what works and what doesn’t work.  Sometimes this can be simple lines of banter in the show, or in other cases, whole songs.  For example, early into the run, our song Fly Away Today (Proudly South African) was replaced with The Steri Stumpie Song, because apparently the general British public prefer songs about flavoured milk products.

We still had another song in our set which wasn’t quite working, so I thought it might be time to pull out two of our Christmas songs.  One is about Michael Clarke Duncan terrorising children on Christmas Eve if they don’t fall asleep, and the other one is about how it never snows in Cape Town, so if you want a white Christmas, you’d have to join the KKK.  In context of themselves, the songs are fairly harmless and were written without any racist intent whatsoever.  However, if you isolate the choruses, it becomes slightly more suspect.

We (and by we, I mainly mean myself) thought it could be a good idea to remove the problem song and replace it with a section of the show where I presented the choruses of those two songs to Dylan as potential Christmas song ideas, and then he’d hear the songs and act disgusted, people would laugh at the ludicrousness of the idea, and then we’d continue with the show.

The unforeseen problem (later pointed out to us by Dead Cat Bounce) is that people don’t really know where most South Africans stand on racism, and so rather than being funny, it was simply incredibly awkward because no-one could tell whether we were being serious or not.  In hindsight, I can totally see why this would be a problematic – people that know me, or know us in South Africa, would definitely know that I would never join the KKK, but people here might be thinking, “Hang on... he is South African, he is white, and it is completely possible he doesn’t own a copy of Long Walk To Freedom”.

I guess you live and learn, and I hope anyone who was in the show understands that we’re a big fan of our rainbow nation and aren’t secretly trying to oppress minorities through comedy.  We apologise to anyone who was offended, and if the person who reviewed us in the Metro is reading this, now that you’re aware we’re not actually looking into joining the BNP whilst we’re here, can we have four stars instead of three?

In terms of watching shows, today we watched Smile & Nod, Jennifer Coolidge and So You Think You’re Funny hosted by Andrew Bird.  We met Coolidge after the show and found out some behind the scenes gossip about A Night at the Roxbury, but because this is not a tabloid blog, those secrets stay with me.

19th August 2010 (Thursday)

Today was the day we made our debut on BBC radio.  (Well, it was BBC Radio Scotland, but I think that still counts.)

We ended up getting picked up quite early, so we had a lot of time on our hands when we arrived before we actually had to be on air.  Now, if you listened to the interview, you would have been informed that we spent that extra time flirting with the show runners.  I’ll leave it up to your imagination to decide whether that was true or not, but I will say that we spent the majority of the time working on my next idea for our show.  We decided to drop the offensive Christmas song routine after our first attempt at it, so we still had a gap to fill, and I had had a good idea for how we could fill that gap the night before whilst watching So You Think You’re Funny.  And considering we’ve stuck with it, I think it’s safe to say it was actually a good idea this time round, and yes, I Do Think I’m Funny.

Instead of playing the song which seemed to fall flat, we thought we’d replace it by doing a medley of songs which didn’t make it into the show – we’d just play the choruses of them, and that way, if no-one found the chorus amusing, it wouldn’t matter, because it wouldn’t take long to get to the next chorus.  So one minute we’re singing about a hybrid between a shark and a man, and the next minute we’re singing about animal’s rights and my ringtone.

After we’d practised this routine a couple of times and eaten a particularly nice muffin, it was actually time for the interview, which ended up going incredibly well, so thank you very much to everyone involved.

That night Dyl went to go watch Dead Cat Bounce for the third time, whilst I roamed around the streets of Edinburgh trying to find a copy of the Metro so I could read our review, and then both of us went to go watch Showstopper – a completely improvised musical.  Because it’s improvised, it’s different every night, but our musical ended up being called I’ve Got You Under My Skin, the tale of a red blood cell’s love for a white blood cell which turned cancerous because of a diabolic plot by an alcoholic’s last two brain cells.  Yes, it was as amazing as it sounds.

After Showstopper we watched Axis of Awesome and Friends, which featured stand-up by Jarlath Regan and Des Bishop, as well as musical guests Dead Cat Bounce.  I ended up spending the rest of the night with the Edcom crew in the Loft, whilst Dyl experienced the Silent Disco – a disco where everyone wears headphones and listens to music instead of the music being played through a sound system like a normal disco.  The only real benefit of this seems to be taking off your headphones and watching people shouting at each other whilst seemingly dancing to nothing at all.  Sounds great.

20th August 2010 (Friday)

Fame is quite a weird concept, because you’re only really famous if people actually know who you are.  I mention this because this was the morning I had a really nice conversation with this beautiful and friendly lady called Abi Titmuss, and only after the conversation was finished, did I find out that she was an incredibly famous model turned aspiring actress.  Go Abi!

This was all on the Steven K Amos talk show, where we also appeared alongside John Maloney and Shappi Khorsandi.  Oh and Steven K Amos of course.  It would have been weird if he had decided not to pitch up for his own show.  It would be like as if Frank Skinner was supposed to have done a talk show at Assembly and then not... oh wait, that’s exactly why Steven K Amos was doing the show in the first place.

The night before had been quite a late one, so we decided to have supper at The Doctors after our show, and then head back to our place and watch the first Batman movie.  We tried to convince our friend Miriam to join us, but she had a show booked that night, and despite the fact that we defaced the flier for her show and changed the show’s name to Batman and the venue to our flat, she still didn’t pitch.

It’s probably just as well though, because we both fell asleep.


21st August 2010 (Saturday)

Today was our last lunchtime showcase show at Pleasance, and we shared the stage with Yianni Agisilaou (host), The Unexpected Items, Adam Vincent and someone else whose name escapes me.  As always, the showcase show was a lot of fun, and although this marked the end of having any afternoon responsibilities, it was sad that it was going to be our last.

This was also the day we rented a car, and then after our show, drove out to a place just outside of Newcastle and played a 21st.  Yes, I shall explain...

Back in Cape Town, Dyl met a man called Tim in a pub round the time of The World Cup.  They got speaking and Tim said his daughter was having a 21st and he needed a band.  Dyl said he was in a band.  Tim said he lived in England.  Dyl said he was going to be in England.  Tim ended up asking The Brothers Streep to play at his daughter’s 21st.  Done.

Now – to be honest – I think it’s safe to say that both sides had their doubts as to whether this was actually going to happen.  Conversations you have late at night in pubs tend to be forgotten, and even though this particular conversation was followed up on e-mail, Tim would have had his doubts that two men in their twenties would leave the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland to drive out to his daughter’s 21st near Newcastle in England, and we obviously had our doubts that Tim was not just a figment of Dyl’s imagination and that we were actually going to be paid for such an adventure.

None the less, after about a one hour and forty five minute drive, we were at a lady named Frankie’s 21st, watching her father dressed up as The King of Rock n Roll and singing Elvis.  It was a hard act to follow, but we took to the stage, played about two of our own songs, and then spent the rest of our set playing covers which resulted in a rather raucous sing-a-long.  It was great.

I’ve been to a lot of 21st birthday parties where I’ve hardly known anyone and it’s been quite awkward and boring, but Frankie and her friends and family definitely succeeded in making us feel incredibly welcome, so much so that we gladly joined the celebrations after our set, and I can easily say that this was one of the best 21sts I’ve ever been to.

And this is still true even though I ended up not being able to find my room due to a confusing numbering system, and the fact that what I thought was my room was actually a broom cupboard, and so had to go to sleep on the floor of another room on top of people’s bags and clothes, having successfully stolen a pillow and duvet from a lady I met on the dance floor called Lizzi - who was fortunately too tired to fight the duvet and pillow from my clutches, but who unfortunately was sharing a room with someone who accidently spilt a bottle of vodka over my shirt on his way to the bathroom.

But yes, thank you to Tim, Frankie, Lizzi and everyone else we met that night – it was all great fun.  Oh and if you end up finding my tie, let me know.  We actually still have our room key, so we can do a trade.

22nd August 2010 (Sunday)

The drive back from Newcastle to Edinburgh is very beautiful, but I won’t lie, it’s also quite long and painful when you’re low on sleep.  But none the less, it was great driving through quaint villages and seeing a bit of the English and Scottish country sides.

Interesting travel fact: On our journey there we didn’t come across a Welcome To England sign, but on the journey back we did drive past a Welcome To Scotland sign.  I’m not sure if this has any significance.  It could mean that Scottish people are prouder of their country.  Or it could just mean that my eyesight wasn’t very good on the way there.

That afternoon we did what any people would have done after a late night and an early morning drive... we slept.  It was glorious.  I slept on a real bed.  And I didn’t spend a good five minutes trying to get into the broom cupboard in our flat thinking it was actually my room.

That evening after our show we went to go watch Aidan’s brother, Des Bishop, and then we watched Jimmy Carr.  There’s been a lot of talk about Des Bishop’s show getting nominated for a comedy award, and I found out today as I write this blog that it didn’t get a nomination, which is a real shame, because it is a very funny and moving show, and one of the more original hours of stand-up I’ve seen since I’ve been here.  That said, Boy With Tape On His Face did get a nomination, so I’m one step closer to not having to wear tape on my face in protest if he doesn’t win the actual award.

We decided to opt for an early night (which in Edinburgh, means roughly 2:30am), and we watched Batman Returns before going to sleep – this time round our friend, flierer and technician Tom joined us for the screening.  [I’ve just realised I don’t really know how you spell flierer.  Is it flierer?  Or flyerer?  Please debate this in the comment section so I can get a definitive answer.]

23rd August 2010 (Monday)

I’ve got a good friend called Andrew Kerr who I know also reads this blog.  He’s a big fan of improvised comedy, and is also quite a bit fan of Have I Got News For You, which stars the improv legend, Paul Merton.  Now – I’m not sure whether I went to go see this show in order to impress Andrew, or whether I went so I could simply brag about it to him, but this afternoon Dyl and I went to go watch Paul Merton’s Improv Chums.  In the title, the Paul Merton bit obviously refers to Paul Merton, and the Chums bit refers to Richard Vranch, Lee Simpson, Suki Webster and Mike McShane.  It was a fun show which reminded me of how quick Paul Merton’s wit is, and in comparison how bored he looks on Have I Got News For You.

That evening I went to go watch Chris Addison at the Assembly, whilst Dyl went to go watch Arj Barker, also at the Assembly.  Both of us had nothing but good things to say about our respective shows, and we ended up meeting at the Assembly Bar afterwards for a drink.  (The Assembly Bar is Assembly’s answer to the Loft Bar at The Gilded Balloon – only it seems far more fancy, and as a result, far less appealing.  In an attempt to ad an air of artiness and class to their bar, they’ve placed empty bird cages around the room.  Which could be art, or it could just mean they’re terrible at caring for birds.)

From the Assembly Bar we headed off the Loft Bar, and then off to Late n Live which featured Chris Ramsey as the host, and Marcel Lucont, Costaki Economopoulos and Axis of Awesome as the other comedians.  Dead Cat Bounce were the house band and ended the evening off by channelling Jive Bunny and covering a huge mash-up of popular songs.