Oh Edinburgh!

I was going to post a whole load of blogs during White Collar Comedy's stint at the Edinburgh Fringe but my laptop cable died and the replacement I ordered after hastily joining Prime for the one-day delivery, vanished into the ether and never arrived.

Which basically meant I had more time to be out and about, seeing shows, flyering and having fun.
So here's a bit of a catch-up, with some pictures of folk that Kate, Ravi and I met at the Fringe, starting with the winner of Thursday's 'who looks most like a fantasy Jesus?' competition. And yes, we vicars are aware that Jesus would most likely have been a short, dark and definitely Jewish dude. I did say 'fantasy' Jesus, didn't I?

 Kate Bruce and I did a lot of flyering together. Ravi was a one-man flyer phonomenon all on his own and we were just in the way if we hung around while people were being spontaneously seduced by his irresistable charm so we found ourselves a regular spot by the Gilded Balloon and watched out for what we called 'our people' — i.e. respectable middle aged types or spectacular members of the LGBTQ community.

I've been flyering in Edinburgh before but never so successfully or so enjoyably. We spotted our people and launched into our pitch: 'Three genuine vicars doing stand-up. What could possibly go wrong?'

There were three types of responses: 'I'm sorry, I've gone deaf and you are invisible,' gestures that meant 'I'd rather go straight to hell than come to your show' or laughter. If they laughed, then we had a conversation starter and it's the conversations that sell shows, not just the flyers. Sometimes the conversations went on for about ten minutes and maybe they never ended up coming to the show but they were all great conversations and we wouldn't have missed one of them.

What was really rather special was that we recognised most of the people who did come to the show from the flyers we handed out, especially the middle-aged 'respectable' ones who turned up at Sofi's Southside in good time to get themselves a drink and dry out a little from the thunderstorms. That meant that we were able to meet and greet and that, in turn, meant they were happier to talk with us after the show when we forced them to do the traditional 'shake the vicar's hand after the service' routine. Except this time, the vicar's hands had a collection bag and a free 'get out of hell free' card. More than 200 people ended up with one of those after just 10 days. My work here is done!

Before we went to Edinburgh, I posted on Ravi's, Kate's and my behalf on most of the Facebook Edinburgh fora that we were willing and able to be any backup needed for anyone in the LGBTQ community who faced any discrimination while at the Fringe. We can play 'Bible tennis' with anyone who wants to try and say that sexuality is something that Jesus gave a flying fig about or who wants to quote St. Paul (who, incidentally, is one of the misquoted teachers there is and clearly thought that gossiping and being rude to your parents was just as bad as 'abnormal acts' which is generally mistranslated as 'homosexuality.'

It's a bit weird writing this after the event but there are more stories to tell including the one about the Great Gay Story Slam and meeting Eddie Izzard ... so I'll be back...