Fringe funtimes!

So if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know I was at the Edinburgh Fringe from Wednesday to Saturday. I was supposed to go home on the Thursday but the crazy, beautiful city kept pulling me back in. Luring me with it's sights, shows and general feel good vibe.
As I am a very poor little lady, it was a free fringe but I had no qualms with this. I believe some people underestimate the wonder of 'free-fringing it' The two companies that I know of that run free fringe shows are PBH'S Free Fringe (now in it's 16th year of running) and Laughing Horse (in it's 9th year).  I didn't take too many photos which I'm now quite annoyed at, but I'm going back on Thursday so there will be more then!
I'd like to quickly talk about the shows I saw as I bloody loved them all! Click the read more if you want to read all about them!

Mr Billy Kirkwood, (the smily chap in purple)

I first saw Billy at Mick Foley's first Glasgow comedy show. He is in your face, honest and deliciously vulgar. So of course, I loved him! As soon as I knew he was at the Fringe, I knew I had to go see him. His show "Show Me Your Tattoo" is simply put, fantastic! It's at the Beehive Inn in the Grassmarket every day of the Fringe except the 13th, at 2.40pm and I recommend you all go see him at least once! I went twice because I'm a stalky so and so :P

You can find out more about Billy here

Monkey Poet aka Matt Panesh

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos with Monkey/Matt but I'll try to on my next visit to the Burgh!

I went to this show on the word of my friend Sparky, that he was amazing. I'd never seen poetry before, I know I know, shocking! I'd read so much poetry growing up and yet never gone to see the spoken word.

I was blown away. Literally. I left the show (the first time I saw it) just kind of floating about in a trance, reliving what I had just heard. I then convinced my mother to go see him the day after, both his play and poetry (many talents this man!) and then Louis the day after. I'll no doubt see him again when I'm back through as well.

I don't want to go to much into the actual shows because I want you all to go see him and find out for yourself! But Matt is a lovely guy, he's passionate about what he does and he's doing it all for free!

That's right, Monkey Poet is doing two shows every day throughout the Fringe for free!

Just make sure you go to the right show, especially if you're going to review it!

You can read more about Matt on his website

The rest of the shows I saw kind of went by in a blur. Going to one show and there being 4 or 5 comics there. Sketch shows, burlesque shows, magicians on the street. A blur, but it was a magical blur. It made me wish I still lived in Edinburgh so that I could live the Fringe every day!

And now on to the big show, the main reason I went to the Fringe in the first place. Mr Mick Foley! That's right, the hardcore legend, Mankind, Cactus Jack, Dude Love. Wrestler, turned award winning author who is now taking on the comedy circuit.

I first met Mick at his show earlier this year in February and then here at the Fringe. He is quite simply put, THE nicest guy ever! After talking to him for a few minutes, you relax so much and forget just how famous this man is. Of course you then leave thinking, holy f*ck, I just spoke to Mick Foley...

I won't be going in to a lot of detail as I'll be doing another post in which he answers some questions I put to him via email. I would have asked them in person but in the four days he was here, I don't think he even had time to eat or sleep! I'll talk more about his show in that post.

I don't know about you, but I don't tend to meet famous people all the time and so what I think in my head isn't always true to the person. For instance I didn't realise just how big Mick Foley is, he stands 6ft 2 in height but watching the tv, you never think it's that tall. When you meet him however, he does tower over you quite a bit! At 5ft 6.5 (that extra .5 matters people!) I did feel particularly tiny. I'm not really going anywhere with this point I think, I'm just rambling now.

So yeah, I'm going to wrap up this extra long post now. I hope you all enjoyed reading it, if you did!

Have you been to the Fringe? What shows did you go to? Do you plan on going before it finishes this year or are you going next year?