Hooked again
Words: Dusty   
Tuesday, 31 July 2007

Every year I say it's my last ...

I certainly did last year, when for some reason fathomable only to an expert in abnormal psychology I decided to do a one-man show and host a late-night cabaret. Mistake. Big mistake. Big, costly, mistake.

I swore, 'never again', once I'd returned to London, homeless, penniless, and considerably thinner. But going to the

Fringe is addictive, and, as Ozzy Osbourne once said of cocaine, every time you do it, you are making a desperate attempt to
recapture the buzz of the first time.

This year I intend to avoid making the same mistakes I made last year. Hopefully I'll make some new and exciting mistakes. What they might be is yet to be discovered.

I am returning to the scene of the original crime, the glorious Bongo Club, where in 2003 I discovered a world of cabaret delights not dissimilar to a Heironymous Bosch painting. I will be hosting the Vaudeville Cabaret Club, which is pretty much the best-value show in town.

The joy of the Bongo Club, as opposed to so many venues in Edinburgh, is that it is an artistic nexus year-round. It's not some manky beer cellar with a few black curtains hung up and a dodgy lighting rig so that the landlord can charge it out for exorbitant rents to student theatre groups.

The Bongo Club is a tribal kind of place, and in August the tribe consists of anyone who loves the performing arts. The Bongo is one place about which I feel deeply sentimental.

The train leaves today. I can already picture the sea as we approach
Berwick-Upon-Tweed and smell the clean air of Scotland.

See. I'm hooked.

 

Dusty Limits comperes Vaudeville Cabaret Club at The Bongo Club, 37 Holyrood Rd | Aug 5-26 | 11pm till late.