Highlights from FreshFringe 2010.

All audio is from broadcast interviews or The Inside Track, an album we released to raise money for Waverley Care, featuring some of the best Scottish Acts

The Tracks You Can Hear are:
Tango In The Attic - Jackanory
Japanse War Effort - Summer Sun Skateboard
I Build Collapsible Mountains - Switches 
The Tiger Lillies - Swine (live on freshair)


Thanks to everyone who took part last year - not just the FreshFringe crew but also all the many guests we had, without which our broadcast would be pointless. 

FreshFringe Highlights 2010

This is the five minute entry I put in for the BBC New Comedy Award 2011. I got me into the Glasgow heat where I came runner up to the fantastic Michael Dolan.

Richard Hanrahan - Radio 2 New Comedy Award 2011 - 5 Minute Stand Up

Richard Hanrahan Doing Stand Up at Grassroots n March. Grassroots is a night for trying out new material and experimenting. I was in a naughty mood and tried to trip myself up as much as possible by refusing to do the punchlines, using different intonation, and spent most of the set painting myself with clown make-up or miming things seemingly incongruous with the material. Hence also I open the bit by waving.

Richard Hanrahan - Grassroots 26th March 2013 -15 Minutes of Rubbish

This is a poem I wrote just for you.

The Peginald

His eyes had a thousand teeth
and his teeth had a thousand eyes
his mouth was made of rubber,
but tasted like cyanide
he spat whenever he spoke
and he spoke just to dry his mouth
the dribble and drivel he choked
was enough to cover a house

His skin was green
his buttocks were plenty
and his genitals always hung low
his elbows were noses
his ears were thorned roses
and his seventeen legs were useless paired off in a single row

Worse than the fact he looked like a blizzard, 
a confusion of flesh, juice and boil
his pores were refined, 
so weepy all the time, 
that each had their own oil refinery
his manners were such that he did not stop yapping
informed by the cold sores round his mouth
but not knowing language, despite his lips chapping
no sound was comprehensible enough.
his immunity community, was absent except he
had one bearded cell gnome to his name
who would traipse through his stomach
for days with his hammock
with only a small wooden blade 
so to sight he was a wretch
but unpleasant too – such that you knew he didn't like you
the definition of bastard, his forehead like custard
his life was just screaming and sneezes
But, his knees.

Good god, his knees were charming, 
incredibly so,
fascinating, disarming
recounting fine anecdotes – the finest in town
with only the corner of knee, no mouth hole to speak of
no vessel to tweet through
just a joint that delighted all present company
they were invited to balls, 
wined and dined, met by all
and no one dared mention their owner
the fat green pile of teeth eyes and bile 
his knees meant all saw through his foibles.

This included the dancing
the murder while prancing,
and the never ending incessant screaming
neither didn't care
a jot about his hair
the long strands dipping in punch
the dandruff that spouted, 
snowing from his crown
and littering white puff in their lunch
nor that his shoulders were bleeding
spraying the ceiling
or the sound of the squeakings of toad 
that lived in his arm pits
dripping on carpets
or that his feet were tapping hatred in morse code

What can we learn from this lonely peginald?
nothing much as its a Hessian sack of nonsense
but if you want to find some morality
within this tome of banality
than be sure to clean and care for your knees

Poetry - The Peginald

The Alternative Wordbook is an attempt to collect a bunch of new words together that "the official dictionary people" won't publish. The author of the piece is actually character, who just happens to have the same name as me, and is a well-intentioned, but clearly misinformed, faux academic, writing lovingly about words that don't work and new ideas for some that he thinks do. The character is essentially an extension of me, constantly dissatisfied with words and making things up when my mouth is too slow for ideas I have. 

It's a work of fiction which could be read in any order you want - you can browse through and find funny words that stand-up of their own volition, or read it in order and see some vague sense of narrative and progression, small jokes falling into place here and there. It's something slightly more than just a book of one man's attempt at urban dictionary, with around 26 short funny essays on the derivations of letters, as well as the actual definitions themselves.

Find out more on my kickstarter page http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/138101816/the-alternative-wordbook/



Kickstarter - The Alternative Wordbook - Introduction

Bluebird by Simon Watt.
 

There’s a bluebird in my wardrobe
but he wants to get out
if I leave him
to shit
he’ll shit all about
the place

So I don’t keep him in there, all the time.
Somedays he comes out into the lounge
and does a shit there
Somedays he comes out into the kitchen
he does a shit there
Somedays, he comes out, well I open the door
but he doesn’t come out.
He just sort of looks at me.
 
There’s a bluebird in my wardrobe
and he watches me eat sweets
I like chewing on some strawberry laes
which don’t work for shoes
but I’d like some strawberry shoes.
And he watches me
like a tit.
But he’s a bluebird, not a blue tit.
 
I can’t take him for walks like a dog
cos he’d fly away, and I’d be sad.
I tried to put a leash on him, but he’s too small for it (it’s a dog leash)
But if he flew away
I’d be sad
and he’d be sad,
because he wouldn’t be able to talk
to me
anymore.
 
He’s called Lionel.
And he’s got big feet.
And a blue head.
That’s why he’s called a bluebird.
 
(Poem ends.)


Audio of a Western Bluebird used under a Creative Commons Licence -- Andrew Spencer (XC100904) - http://www.xeno-canto.org/

Bluebird (by Simon Watt)

Wrd of the day: Huskey

For more information check out the kickstarter - www.kickstarter.com/projects/138101816/the-alternative-wordbook

Like my page on facebook.
Follow me on twitter: @thehitch

Wrd of the Day: Huskey

Wrd of the day: Anagram-a-gram

For more information check out the kickstarter - www.kickstarter.com/projects/138101…native-wordbook

Like my page on facebook.
Follow me on twitter: @thehitch

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