Our Edinburgh: The Penny Dreadfuls
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Your support makes all the difference.Humphrey Ker, David Reed & Thom Tuck...
Humphrey: David, Thom... thanks for being here.
David: Our pleasure.
Thom: You're welcome.
Humphrey: I’ve been asked by The Independent to interview you about Edinburgh.
David: Edinburgh is our city. But, you're welcome to borrow it.
Thom: Well, for the month of August at least.
David: The three of us first met here back in 2001, whilst attending university and fell into doing comedy together almost immediately. We lived here for the following five years and have come back every year since.
Humphrey: I know all that. I was there.
David: It was more for the readers' benefit, really.
Humphrey: Right. Yep.
Thom: This is a bit weird.
Humphrey: No, you’re a bit... Sorry. I’ve never conducted an interview before. Please continue.
Thom: When you first try to walk around Edinburgh you come to realise that it is remarkably like a wind tunnel designed by M. C. Escher. You seem to always be precisely forty foot above where you need to be and your hair follows just behind your head...
David: ... like some kind of naughty wasp.
Thom: Now, however, we are experts.
David: I wouldn't quite say that.
Humphrey: Does seem a bit arrogant.
David: But you really do feel like you belong to a city when you can give complicated directions to a Pizza Express in Stockbridge you've never eaten in...
Thom: ...or overhearing a tourist mispronounce 'Cockburn Street' and internally tutting.
Humphrey: So, what are you looking forward to going back to?
David: Popping my head into a couple of proper old favourite pubs.
Humphrey: Any specific ones?
David: Yes, but I don't want anyone else going there.
Thom: We'll also need to visit Edinburgh Zoo again. I used to be a member. I can't wait to walk up Corstorphine Hill to watch the chimps silhouetted against the sunset...
David: Sounds romantic.
Humphrey: Sounds ghastly. I like Frankie and Benny’s in the Omni Centre...
David: No... You don’t get to express yourself. You just ask us the questions.
Thom: That said Frankie and Benny’s. Zowie! What a place!
David: It is great. So many celebs in there.
Humphrey: Do you have any good friends up in Edinburgh you are looking forward to seeing?
David: Our friend Martin still lives up there and we all love seeing him every year.
Thom: What? Martin moved to New York... right? Like, three years ago?
David: Oh. Ummm. Yeah. Very much so.
Humphrey: What are you talking about he’s still… ooh! Yeah he’s gone. Totally gone.
David: Are we nearly finished? It’s nearly time for our 101 Ways To Leave A Gameshow marathon.
Humphrey: Finally, Edinburgh in a sentence:
Thom: The City of a thousand dreams o’erflown with Pan’s immortal song.
David: A sonsie-faced Pudden.
Humphrey: Where men go to toil and die and dying forget. Sorry, that’s the French Foreign Legion. Erm... Really nice.
The Penny Dreadfuls, to 30 Aug, Pleasance Courtyard (0131 556 6550)
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