A tron is a communal weighing scale that was used in Scotland to try and make sure that citizens got fair value for money. This explains the name of a pub in Edinburgh where I saw this fellow perform for an hour one rainy teatime:
He was very funny but also managed to weave in pathos into the story he structured his act around, which was the obviously painful break-up with his girlfriend. I'm exactly twice John's age but still connected with his ultimately hopeless attempts to win her back.
I don't intend to regurgitate his act here (for one it wouldn't be fair and for another there would surely be copyright offences associated with it!) but wanted to share a couple of his observations by way of illustration. For instance, he made great fun of himself at his indignation at her affrontery in bringing the relationship to an end. "I took her on a surprise holiday to Iceland. We stayed in a place on a hillside with a hot tub and as we sat in that one night, magically, the Northern Lights appeared and danced in the sky. Surely, there is a rule that says girls aren't allowed to break up with you when you've shared stuff like that?". I mused on the many special experiences my ex and I had shared over the years...a bittersweet moment of reflection.
There was a heart tugging list he drew up so that he didn't forget anything when he had what he expected to be his last converstaion with her. The list was bullet pointed and the last point was "Say goodbye". He now recognises rather shamefacedly that he put "Get Nectar Card back" above that. His final play to keep her/win her back was to say that he still had stuff in her parents loft, leaving unsaid the subtext "so we can't split up - there is still a connection".
I'm making it sound like a rather sad hour but it wasn't, trust me. I laughed loud and long at the funny parts of his act, but his skill was to bring the audience up short every now and then with a reflection on what was still a raw experience for him. It was a brave performance; clever, funny and real.
John was part of the "Five Pound Fringe". The idea is that shows under this umbrella all cost five pounds (ten pounds is much more the norm) for the whole fringe (it is usual for acts increase prices at weekends). The idea is to encourage what used to be commonplace - taking a chance on an act. One is more likely to do this if the gamble is £5 and not £10-£15. To their credit, a couple of big names (this is a relative concept as you may not have heard of either Mark Watson or Robin Ince but here they are up with the biggest) have put their names to the enterprise and add some kudos to it.
Would I have gone to see John Robins if he wasn't just £5? Probably not - I resent paying £10 for what are sometimes lacklustre performances by better known names(doing a show at the fringe for three weeks solid takes its toll)in hot, musty rooms when I know that they'll do a two hour show in a town near me after Edinburgh, in a proper theatre for the same price.
There has been a fundamental shift in the fringe in recent years. Comedy acts now dominate, to the detriment of other types of performance which tend to get marginalised in less attractive, less central, less well promoted venues than those run by "the big four". These four are "The Assembly Rooms", "The Underbelly", "The Pleasance" and the only one I think still keeps a vestige of "the spirit of the fringe", "The Gilded Balloon". Other than the last named, these behemoths run many satellite venues through the city, attract nationally known names because they have the bigger rooms sewn up. They produce their own programmes and, perhaps most insidiously, have grouped together to create the (much derided) Edinburgh Comedy Festival - supposedly a festival within a festival but actually a cynical marketing ploy. They are a force to be reckoned with and are roundly seen as the drivers of the high ticket prices. I know that I will sound like a luddite for saying it, but the festival was so much more fun when it was more shambolic, less joined up and one had to traipse from venue to venue to try and secure tickets. In those days it was important to talk to the folk handing out flyers to get an understanding of what was on.
Ironically, technology has made things harder in some ways. I bought two tickets for Richard Herring's "Hitler Moustache" only to get to Auld Reekie and find that my friend was otherwise engaged for the date I'd chosen. I went to the box office (it was The Underbelly) to try to change them. I queued for half an hour only to be told, rather coldly "We don't do returns or exchanges. I don't make the rules". One would think that all of the computerisation that has made ticketing so much slicker would have made my wished for transaction fairly easy. One would be wrong.
So - don't forget the "Five Pound Fringe" or PBH's and Laughing Horse's sponsoring of "The Free Fringe". Also, "The Stand" deserves an honourable mention because it's owners don't rip their artists off, and underwrite their shows. It is usual for artists to lose £5000-£7000 putting on a fringe show, even if they sell out. These are, as things stand, the only hope that the big four won't be allowed to corporate-ise what is still, for now, a cornucopia of artistic endeavour, a box of many delights.
