Edinburgh Festival

Today the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Programme 2007 is officially launched. As an aid to anyone that desides to sift through it's positively homeric list of shows I give you the Edinburgh Fringe Drinking Game - something myself and my flatmate came up with in one of our darker days sat in a theatre cafe between shifts (me at the underground ghost tours him at said theatre) several years ago.

Get booze ready and open your fringe programme to a random page. Every time you hear any of the following you take a drink:

1) ANY THREE NOUNS IN A ROW (eg. A tale of romance, intrigue and danger) - 1 drink
+ IF TWO OF THESE ARE METAPHYSICAL AND ONE PHYSICALl (eg. a tale of love, life and bathroom slippers) - 1 drink

2) ANY TIME SOMEONE QUOTES A REVIEW OF THE FIRST PRODUCTION OF THEIR PLAY (n.b. I don't care if The Sunday Times thought Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy was 'hilarious' in 1974, that will not prevent yours from being an embarassing spectacle involving 3 sixth formers in oversized jackets and someone's dad rather sheepishly playing the lead) - 1 Drink

3) ANY PRODUCTION BY AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL THEATRE - 1 Drink

4) ANY SHOW AT C CENTRAL - FORFEIT

5) IF YOU FIND ANY OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS - 1 drink:
Edgy, dark, provocative, compelling, intense, wacky, madcap, off-the-wall, ground-breaking, site-specific, verbatim, Laramie Project.

6) ANY UNNECESSARY ALLITERATION (n.b. that includes Love's Labour Lost) - 1 drink

BONUS ROUNDS:

JOHN 'THE SHANE RICHIE OF THEATRE' GODBER ROUND: Girls - for each production of Shakers - 1 drink, Boys - for each production of Bouncers - 1 drink

THE LES DENNIS FORFEIT - any show starring Les Dennis - finish the bottle.

I have had this up on the facebook (friend me... you know you want to...) and there have already been several wonderful suggestions for further rules - please feel free to leave your own in the comments... together we will make this the magical success story of the festival this year... I can see Fringe Firsts, Herald Angels, Lyn Gardner giving me a back rub... etc.

(N.B on the subject of the fringe do pop over to www.festbitch.blogspot.com - you're one stop shop from festival information that could shatter glass with its cynicism.)