Last night, I felt the warm glow of nostalgia abuse. Walking from Edinburgh College of Art, some excitable beer brain soaked young men in the casual shirts of hopeful mating giddily struck walls and skipped threateningly. “Four eyes!”, shouted one. The others greeted his imagination with acclaim. I walked on. I think they were annoyed that my face had remained stoical. I heard some further shouts, but they got lost in the remaining echoes of the Tattoo bagpipes.
“Four eyes!” I think T’Pau were number one the last time I had that thrown at me. I did have Buddy Holly occasionally on a nineties Night Bus. Now I just get, “the old man from Up halfway through the photo album” from Michael Legge.
I think the Pointless Anger show is pretty good. It is certainly not slick. Michael and I try to create something ridiculous, occasionally worrying, and hopefully funny. We have had a peculiar time in our venue this year. The Wee Red Bar is a lovely place, if a little warm. Festooned with posters of alternative music events, hints of The Pastels, The Vaselines and Andy Kershaw, it is like a student bar when student bars were student bars not nightclubs. Its redness is Mean Streets with a hint of Moira Shearer.
It is the sort of room we like to do our stupid show in.
But 50% of the nights, it is being received quite coldly. I don’t know if two men leaping on stage, jumping about in a hyperkinetic fashion, while singing Daphne and Celeste puts people immediately into a state of denial. I think my teen years of studying Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty may be paying off.
Last night, as Michael Legge held the packing case we use to collect the free fringe donations, a man looked at him and said, “that was shite”.
I think Michael was a little taken aback, but managed a comeback with a derogatory air.
It wasn’t shite, though it might have been unexpected. We are an end of the pier Gilbert and George after a nervous breakdown making a cruise ship comeback on a boat sailing to Reykjavik. We are led by the id.
Why would you stay watching a show you hated when you haven’t even paid money and the door is so close?
We are Mickey Rooneys. I could tell from Michael’s ghastly posture and itchiness that he would have happily left the stage at anytime. I, too, fought the urge to say, “well, this isn’t working out, let’s call it a day”, but we decided to punish them by going on and on. So we punished ourselves too, we wanted to leave, but we stayed and screamed and danced. That’ll show them.
I have four more shows of my mind unraveling HERE and Five more of my mind unravelled (with Michael Legge) HERE
I am then on tour from Newcastle to Exeter, Sheffield to Croydon, Manchester to Cardiff and on HERE
Robinince's Blog 
Dear boy .. .. .. You are often woesomely worrying. And . . . Know what? That is always ridiculously reassuring …
Wish I could be there to see the show, I’m sure I’d enjoy it.
I was there (never seen it before) I don’t think it came across half as badly as you two seem to think.
Most of the audience probably spent the previous 10 hours walking in the rain, wearing soggy trainers, huddled under windblow umbrellas, then finally having to search about in the dark for the most obscure venue in Edinburgh probably “dampened” the mood somewhat. Well that’s my theory any way.