Festival!!!!!!!!!

So Sunday afternoon I disembarked from my train at Edinburgh Waverley Station, dying for a fag but faced with a billion signs saying that as the station was an 'enclosed public space' smoking was not allowed. Bugger!

Got a cab to my pal Stephen K Amos's flat, which was in a very smart part of town, to find that his flat was of course 6 very very steep flights of stairs up! Why is it that nothing is downhill in Edinburgh?

A quick cuppa, one fag smoked hanging out of the window (its a non-smoking flat) and a layer of slap on my face later, and we were back out and en route for some lunch. Within 30 seconds we'd bumped into Mark Thomas and Robin Ince, then entering the restaurant, we saw the lovely Marcus Brigstocke! This place really is comedy central.

We filled up on pasta - carbs for slow release of energy - and caught up on what's being occuring so far. Steve's having a great time, selling out, rave reviews and generally being less of a party animal than ever before. He's not the only one, I've never seen so many comedians looking so healthy at this stage of the festival before. Either we're all getting older and more sensible, or the cost of doing the month is sooooooo high that no-one can afford to get wasted every night.

We jumped into a cab over to the E4 Udderbelly venue, which is a giant inflatable purple cow laying on it's back in the middle of Bristo Square. Its here that Steve's doing Talk Radio with Phil Nichol and Mike McShane (who by the way is half the man he used to be! He's lost a ton of weight!). Steve walked me into the show, then he went to prepare for his acting role. That seems to consist of putting a different shirt on.

I'd seen the movie years ago, but Phil's portrayal of late night shock-jock Barry Champlayne, eclipses Eric Bogosian's original performance....he's fantastic! Steve was fab too, and the whole thing was just a great theatre experience.

We hung out after the show, and I bumped into Reginald D Hunter. I haven't seen Reg for a couple of years and it was a joy to catch up with him. We wandered over to the Pleasance, so that Steve could prepare for his next show, the stand-up one called "All of Me". I was really looking forward to this, as spending an hour in Mr Amos' company is always a joy. He sure didn't disappoint. What a great show! There's a few days left and he's added extra shows, so if you're in the Edinburgh area get yer ass down there and see him now!

More ligging ensued, catching up with Steve Hughes, Paul Sinha, Terry Alderton and many more, before it was time to go to the Gilded Balloon for Steve's third show of the day, MC'ing Late and Live. The line-up included Rhys Darby who I haven't seen since he became a Dad a few months back. He always makes me laugh with his silly noises and faces, its childish but that's not a bad thing at all.

Jim Jeffries was also on, and it was a joy of a different kind watching him. Half of the audience were in shock at the things he was saying. It really does confuse me that people don't get that these are just jokes. I mean Jim's stuff is strong, but he's funny as hell and not really hurting anyone. There's plenty of guys on the circuit who do the shock thing, but in my opinion Jim stands out as the one whose writing justifies the depths he plunges to.

After the gig was over we headed up to the Loft Bar, which has an outside terrace so you can smoke, needless to say this place is very popular! Here's the role call of old mates I saw in there: Bill Bailey, Dave Johns, Kevin Eldon, Nick Wilty, Steve Furst, Martin Trenneman, Brendan Burns, Shappi Korsandi, Christian Riley, and about a million more! It was great to see so many cool people in one place.

By the time we scaled the north face of Steve's flat I was all ligged out, and shocked to see that it was 4am! I haven't been out this late, sober and drug free for about 30 years!

A whole 4 hours' sleep later and I was up and getting ready for another show. I went to see The Early Edition which is Marcus Brigstocke's topical comedy thing. He does The Late Edition on BBC4 which is fantastic and decided to do a daily version during the festival. My comedy brother Andre Vincent is involved in both shows and it was wonderful to catch up with him. They had two guests, a female comic called Carrie Quinlan and the lovely Ed Byrne who I haven't seen since the last time I was in Edinbugh three years ago. They disected the days papers, made lots of jokes and was a perfect way to start the day, especially as we all got a free coffee and a bun.

I buggered off for a bit of art for the rest of the afternoon, then headed back to the Udderbelly to meet up with Steve after his show, we had some food together but a day spent walking uphill and 4 hours' kip got the better of me and I had to give up and head back to his flat at 9. I was fast asleep by 9.30!

Tuesday I got up at the crack of dawn again and went with Steve as he did Fred MacAulay's radio show at the gorgeous Spielgeltent, the lovely Will Smith was also on. He's having a great festival, which he thoroughly deserves. Steve's second show of the day was his own chat show at the Gilded Balloon. He'd enlisted me to do a bit in the middle of the show, where he gets two comedians to re-enact a famous movie scene, and I was doing Casablanca with Papa CJ, a newish comic who's up here doing the odd gigs.

Luckily he had proper guests on too, in the form of Dudley Sutton and Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden, all of whom were fabulously entertaining. The best part of it all for me was that I was the only person on that stage who didn't swear! Makes a very pleasant change!

Late lunch and a long chat later, and it was time for me to go. I had a great couple of days, but did it make me wish I was doing my own hour show up there? No, not really. Edinburgh is very corporate these days, and unless what you're selling is what the industry wants to buy there really isn't a reason to spend all that hard earned cash. For every sell-out show like Steve's there are 20 others who are playing to 4 people a night and running up a huge debt. A one-star review can ruin not just your Edinburgh, but your entire career, and I really don't have anything I want to say badly enough to put myself through all of that.

Maybe one day I will...who knows?