Edinburgh festival Day 16: Reviews: Anorak of Fire
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Your support makes all the difference.What next? A comedy about pigeon-fancying? In this gentle, if insipid monologue, Gus Gascoine plays a train-spotter - to nearly full houses (Edinburgh must be fresh out of parkas, thermos-flasks, fishpaste and tupperware sandwich-boxes). Resplendent in bottle-bottom specs, trainers with velcro instead of laces, a Heavy Metal T-shirt and his prized Anorak of Fire, Gascoine chugs through such lines as 'Crewe Station to train-spotters is like Monte Carlo to James Bond'. He used to get himself out first ball in school cricket matches just so he could sneak off to the local railway siding. Gascoine blows the whistle on the sex life of the Greater Spotted Train-Spotter - a loco always comes before a legover. The overall tone is affectionate and it's a clever piece of characterisation, but one joke does not make an hour of comedy.
Gilded Balloon (venue 38), 233 Cowgate (031-226 2151). 4pm to 4 Sept.
(Photograph omitted)
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