The Fringe drags on

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The Edinburgh Fringe is like an ex-lover. The one who ignores you until he’s had 16 vodkas and his girlfriend storms home without him (so what, the cow stopped doing that trick that made him go out with her in the first place anyway), and then starts telling you how beeeeeyooooootiful you are and asking why thingsh d-dint work between yoush?

Don’t look at me like that. You know what I’m talking about.
 
So far I’ve been a good little showgirl. I’ve been daily rising and climbing the Crags (seriously, I’m hoiking myself up hills and standing on mountain tops gazing at the undulating land of my forbears, all ranga and Viking with thigh muscles and belly rippling). Feels like I know Edinburgh now.

Yesterday my one pound for cancer research got me a magnificent Soft Cell album which includes the tantalising song title ‘Sex Dwarf’. I’ve already done a thrift shop trawl, washed my grundies and I’m about to find the surgical museum and stare at murderers’ skellingtons. I like this town.
 
I’ve had a corker couple of nights – two 4 star reviews already (Chortle and Three Weeks). The show’s all shiny and spanky and great, and the spandex is FREAKIN’ CLEAN!!

I have a nearby flat, shared with a bevy of lovelies in the form of Drags Aloud. So I have company on the walk home, a fine collection of culinary masters (daaamn, they can cook!), countless word games involving profanities, no competition for the mirror… oh no, wait, that last one’s not true. But for someone who is about as girly-girly as Beowulf, it’s actually comforting to see a rack of cosmetics and facial cleansers to rival Christina Aguilera on a ‘fat’ day next to my own modest collection (home brand cold cream and 30+ sun screen is a beauty regime!).
 
It’s comforting to join the nightly post-show tights washing queue at the laundry basin. And I’ve never heard the word ‘cock’ uttered so often before breakfast, usually while YouTube-ing the trailer for the soon-to-be-released cinematic afterbirth Burlesque in which Cher performs like she’s been horkin’ down bees and billiard balls while slipping into anaphylactic shock. We’ve been terrorising late night shoppers at Tesco Metro regularly, squealing up and down the aisles searching for the elusive and popular ‘poo-tickets’. Heaven, I’m in heaven.
 
And the dears have started kindly plugging my show after Drags At The Movies. Though because Jess is Jess, the plugs have been taking the most delightful form. On the opening night, the Drags’ audience was encouraged to see Shut Up And Sing because I’m the surrogate mother of their children. Last night I was their beard (judging from the extraordinary looks we get at 1am, I guess I’m not doing a good job). Tonight…well, you’ll have to go and see their show to find out tonight’s excuse. But it has something to do with me dressing to the left.