We rose quite early, to be greeted by the sight and sound of miscellaneous gulls outside our window and even a bevy of eight swans, which graced our view daily throughout our stay. They even came to say goodbye just as we were leaving, a week later.
We found our way to Leith Links on foot (less than 10 minutes walk away) and played tennis there. Three courts in good condition; quite similar to our regular arrangements at Boston Manor.
Then we returned to the flat to wash, change and sort out bus/tram passes. Once we were “appy” with that, we set off into Edinburgh. First stop, to collect our tickets for today at the High Street Fringe ticket shop.
Then we headed towards Underbelly, to get our bearings & find some lunch. An Underbelly usher recommended Let Me Eat Too, where we had giant “Balmoral” panini wraps of chicken, haggis & cheese. There we met a nice English family – the son was in a show & the parents had some good ideas/suggestions for us.
We subsequently decided that places like Let Me Eat Too and their portion sizes were a bit “over belly” for us at lunchtime ahead of shows at Underbelly and the like, so we lightened up our subsequent post-tennis/lunchtime arrangements.
We saw the only play I had pre-booked for the trip: Angry Alan by Penelope Skinner. It was a superb piece, very well acted by Donald Sage Mackay, whom we had seen quite recently in White Guy On The Bus at the Finborough. Angry Alan has been very well received, on the whole, in formal reviews. By chance, we got to meet Donald Sage Mackay & Penelope Skinner afterwards in the Underbelly cafe.
Then we hunted down tickets for the shows that nice family recommended, &/but took sanctuary in the Checkpoint cafe on Bristo Place. I went on a bit of a fool’s errand from there to try & get tickets in person – app/collect works much better and cheaper it seems.
Then we strolled on to George Square to see NewsRevue; the other show I had pre-booked before we set off for Edinburgh.
I have been hanging around NewsRevue since the early 1990s and had material in the show, including the Edinburgh “best of” shows, for most of that decade. Of course I had often seen previews of the Edinburgh show at the Canal Cafe, but this was the first time I had ever seen the show in Edinburgh. The show has a different vibe in a 500-seater auditorium with the performers miked up and the audience in “early evening Fringe” mode rather than “late night cabaret” mode.
But it is still a very good show, as it has always been; and oh boy was it packed the day we saw it; probably the case every day. NewsRevue really has become an Edinburgh Fringe institution now.
Then we strolled back to High Street to collect those appy show tickets for tomorrow. Then back to Cowgate for quick drink at Underbelly & then on to Three Sisters (Free Sisters) to see Michael Keane (a friend of mine from the real tennis community) & his pals in a comedy improv. show named BattleActs.
Not really our sort of thing; improv. shows, but this one was done very well and had packed out a fairly sizeable room at the Free Sisters.
We bussed back to Leith, stopping for dinner at Chop House Leith for some excellent aged steaks and a couple of glasses of very quaffable red wine.
We’d had a super first day at the fringe.
If you want to see all the pictures we took on this Edinburgh trip, you can find the album by clicking here or the picture (Flickr Album link) below:
