Charlie Pickering at The Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is now in full swing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, according to Edinburgh – The Capital Guide:

“The Fringe…is officially the largest arts festival on the planet...and it breaks its own record every year with increasing participants and audiences.”

This year, the festival runs from August 6 through 28. I’m thrilled because, since I now live here, it will be much easier to see the shows and exhibitions without first driving in from St. Andrews on a Saturday, finding parking (nearly impossible during The Fringe), sprinting from one show to the next with the goal of attending as many as possible, and then driving back home again. Since I’ll undoubtedly see twenty or more shows this month, I’ve decided to share my thoughts on them to give fellow Fringe-goers a few ideas if they’re struggling with their own itineraries.

The first show on our list was Charlie Pickering – Auto. We chose the Aussie comedian because he had been nominated for the Perrier Best Newcomer 2005 Award and we thought that sounded promising.

Pickering’s monologue begins as he attempts to write his autobiography. “My autobiography,” he types on his laptop, “by Charlie Pickering.” The words offer promise, but throughout the show, Pickering finds that writing is much more difficult than it at first seems (tell me about it). So between tales of his childhood that are both hilarious and poignant, he searches for inspiration from B.B. King’s borderline-embarrassing autobiography, from which he reads an occasional excerpt.

I thoroughly enjoyed his performance: it was a great start to The Fringe.