Down to the Wire on the Fringe

Sometimes I wonder if my anal-retentive, slightly OCD, plan-focused, like-to-have-things-just-so tendencies, paired with Laura’s Italian “assertiveness” (let’s call it that) and her strong aversion to being made to feel like a sucker (she would make a pretty convincing Israeli :), might be a dangerous combination. The percentage of times that Laura and I have slept in the first room offered to us in hotels around the world is embarrassingly – or impressively – low. We’re never too proud to request an upgrade or ask for a different room if the one they’ve given us doesn’t meet our (admittedly unrealistic) standards. Sometimes, though, our determination to make things happen works out for the best, and the universe rewards us. At least, that’s how we like to look at it.

The Royal Mile in Edinburgh transformed for FringeWe rolled into Edinburgh after four weeks on the road in the UK with only a room booked and no other firm plans. The Fringe and Edinburgh International Festivals are HUGE events, and they both happen at the same time, in the same city, for an entire month, and tens of thousands of people descend on Edinburgh to be a part of them. (Check out photos from Edinburgh and the festivals in our Edinburgh Fringe Festival photo album.) Many of the best shows sell out quickly, but unfortunately we didn’t have the luxury of too much pre-planning since we’d been focused on our road trip around England, Scotland, and Wales. No matter, we’d just pick up some last minute tickets for the very best shows when we arrived, right?

Not quite. We did manage to score tickets to see a really funny (if a bit rough-around-the-edges) musical trio called Axis of Awesome. Their lead singer is a dead ringer for Jack Black (though not nearly as talented musically), and their sarcastic lyrics and Aussie banter were highly reminiscent of the Kiwi duo Flight of the Conchords. In true over-eager Lustin style, we ended up being first “on queue” for the show, so we had front row seats. It was a great start to our triple-show first day at Fringe. (You might also want to check out Axis of Awesome’s Four Chord Song on YouTube, which we heard live at the show).

Our second show was entertaining in a totally different way. While wandering around the Gilded Balloon and Underbelly venues (there are dozens of venues scattered all over Edinburgh for Fringe), we saw a familiar face on one of the promotional banners. A quick digression: at the strong urgings of our friends Sarah and Ilan, Laura and I started watching The Wire with them on our MacBook Pro (our best option for US television on the road) when we were all traveling together in Israel. The show only had five seasons on HBO, but it has a bit of a cult following, and although it took us a while to get into it, we are now completely hooked on its raw, somewhat dark, and seemingly realistic look at crime and law enforcement in Baltimore.

A few of the key police characters from The Wire (that’s Lester in the middle)One of our favorite characters on The Wire is Lester Freamon, a soft spoken but intelligent cop who ends up being an integral part of their criminal investigations, “good PO-lice” as they say on the show. Lester is played by Clarke Peters, and what we didn’t know was that he’s also a singer and musical writer/producer. Twenty years ago, he created an energetic song and dance show called Five Guys Named Moe, and as luck would have it, he was starring in the 20th anniversary production at Fringe 2010! When we saw the poster, we knew we had to get tickets, so we bought two at the very last minute and headed into the theater.

We didn’t realize until we got into the theater that our seats for the show were reserved, whereas most of the other venues were general admission. Since we’d bought tickets so late, we ended up with really crappy seats (oops), almost front row but WAY over on one side and basically around the corner from the stage. Needless to say, that wasn’t going to do for Lustin, so we immediately began scoping out other seats and planning our move. (Yes, we know we have no shame.) As the house filled up and the lights went down, two much better aisle seats nearby (Row D!) were empty, so once it was dark we skulked around the back and snagged the seats. No one noticed or seemed to care.

Lights up, and there’s Lester! Only he’s drunk, and mumbling, and singing the blues. It turns out Mr. Peters is a great singer in addition to being a great actor, and Laura and I really started to get into the show. Ten or fifteen minutes into the production, though, I saw two older ladies out of the corner of my eye coming down the aisle to our left looking for their seats. Uh oh… busted. But no! The usher quickly escorted them to a couple of empty seats nearby (behind some lighting scaffolding, but hey, they were late, dammit!), and Lustin was safe, although feeling a little bad for our mischief (but they were late!). So basically, we stole theater seats from two old ladies. Very classy. Anyway, the show was really good, with some great big band music and fantastic dancing and singing by Mr. Peters and the five Moes. I snuck a couple of non-flash photos of Clarke Peters on my iPhone, and we thought our brush with celebrity was over.

The Boy With Tape On His Face, one hilarious mime act!Not quite! There was one other show we were hoping to see – The Boy With Tape On His Face, a highly reviewed mime comedy act that was on the cover of The List magazine, which covers the Fringe festival and other arts throughout the year. Not having much hope – he was on the cover of the freakin’ magazine, after all – we’d called about tickets and were told they were sold out, but that some tickets might be available an hour before the show. On the night of the show, we stopped by the box office at 9:00, but the show didn’t start until 10:30, so they told us to come back at 9:30 to check again. We hung around for a bit, and as we were waiting to decide what to do for a half hour (drink beer was high on the agenda), in walked Clarke Peters! I can’t quite say why, but Laura and I were so dumbfounded that we couldn’t say or do ANYTHING, and he walked past us and up the stairs. Nooooooo! We kicked ourselves for not at least saying hello and telling him how much we liked the show, never mind our recent obsession with The Wire. Laura even went so far as to check ALL of the other floors, bars, and open performance spaces in the building to see if she could “accidentally” run into him again, but he was nowhere to be found.

After a quick pint, we headed back down to the box office, and things there had turned into a bit of a shit show. To make a long story short, we went back there at 9:25, only now there were other people waiting for returned tickets. In the end, there were only four tickets left, but with some serious lobbying and, basically, complaining about the whole process and the misinformation about how and when we were supposed to wait for spare tickets, we ended up with the last two tickets. Booya! Gotta love that Italian “assertiveness.” :) And of course, in true over-eager Lustin style, we ended up at the front of the queue outside for the show. Again. We were still beating ourselves up about the missed opportunity with Mr. Peters earlier, but at least we were going to see one of the few five-star reviewed shows at Fringe.

Our brush with celebrity Clarke Peters, aka Lester from The WireBut the universe had more in store for us. Literally a minute or two before our entire queue was escorted from the the front of the building up to the performance space, out walks Clarke Peters again! I wasn’t going to miss my chance this time, so I quickly asked the people behind us in line to hold our spots, and Laura and I walked over and introduced ourselves. He was really, REALLY nice, and we chatted for a few moments after he noticed our American accents. He was kind enough to let us take a couple of photos with him and one of his co-stars from Five Guys Named Moe, and we were so psyched! We shook his hand and told him how much we enjoyed his musical show and The Wire, and then we decided we’d stalked him enough for one night. It was my first ever in-person celebrity encounter, and a hard-earned one, too!

We loved The Boy With Tape On His Face, and we saw one other show on our last night in Edinburgh – Tommy Tiernan, an Irish comedian who dished out a funny mix of political satire, personal stories, and a couple of pretty explicit but laugh-until-you-cry sexual jokes, all sprinkled with enough F-bombs to start WWIII. But for me, the highlight of Fringe 2010 was meeting Lester, I mean Mr. Peters, in person. And of course, getting to send the photo of us with him to our fellow Wire fanatics back home.  :)

Comments

[Alec]

Loved the Four Chord song. and I guess I won't be working for the rest of the day watching all the Axis of Awesome videos :-)

[Ginny]

This is the kind of post that makes me glad I'm *not* on the trip with you guys. I'd be the one crying and apologizing profusely to everyone. I still can't go into a Chipotle without feeling bad...But you only live once, so make sure you're in the front row with the burrito you *really* want! You know, as the saying goes. :)

[Greg F]

Celebrity stalking. Hmm... now this is a side of Lustin I never expected. Maybe The Road is making you two crazy! Haha,..

Seriously love getting your posts. Makes me feel like I'm out there with you.

Greg F