Stephen Bailey: How to find love at the Edinburgh Fringe
Let’s jump straight to it, shall we? The Edinburgh Fringe can’t just be about comedy.
Sure, there are about 400 shows (minimum) every day, and that means a thousand flyers wafted in your face every three feet on the Royal Mile, but that can’t just be it for a month.
I have a theory that you also need love in Edinburgh. I’m saying it and I’m owning it.
This may be 2014, but love still lifts you up where you belong. If it’s good enough for Joe Cocker it’s good enough for me. I believe like any good ‘holiday’ , Edinburgh is the place for dick jokes – and for love… just like Magaluf.
For fellow comedians, we spend time working on our shows, putting our heart and soul into it. Filled with passion, we fall in love with or show, we dream about it and we forgive it and move on when it doesn’t go our way – and then after a month we part ways. So, what I am saying is that it is like any good relationship – it takes one hour’s work.
For visitors to the Fringe (a.k.a our audience), you come to see the stars of the future today… and maybe sleep with them. Like any good weekend away, we all want a smooch outside a Wetherspoons when we have had too many WKD blues. Edinburgh is no different – except the Wetherspoons in the Burgh look like a CASTLE!
Although, to this point, I may not sound like a big believer in Happily Ever After, I really am and the Fringe really is one of the best places to have a whirlwind, summer romance.
Here are a few of my tips on where to go and how to make that three weeks (or that weekend) unforgettable:
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is one of the top tourist attractions in the city – it’s MASSIVE. So when the time comes to get ROMANTIC (a swear word of the modern day), head to the castle. You can grab a vino, take some cute holiday pics together, which you can Instagram later and allow the memories to live on forever when you head back to reality.
Before we continue, I would like to put in a little advisory note – make sure you go to the actual castle. Last year, I decided to take myself off to romance myself and I marched right up to the castle, I went inside and it turned out it was the Travelodge.
I felt like a first class plonker but I did have a lovely sleep – and it’s a perfect and cheap place to visit for when the wooing has been done and you need to escape your friends for a sexy moment.
Ghost Tours
You can take one of the many ghost tours; a great way to shock that lover into your arms. BOO! Argh! Smooch! Yeah, that’s right, when I’m scared, I kiss. Doesn’t everyone?
Arthur’s Seat
The top of Arthur’s Seat has the best views of the city. And long walks in nature gets the heart racing, the views are breathtaking and, if you go up there – maybe with a picnic and some local Scottish whiskey – you are going to be laughing or seducing, or being seduced.
Maybe a romp on Arthur’s Seat could lead to something more serious where year’s later you will come back to get married. **Please note I do not encourage indecent exposure (publicly)**
CC Blooms
One of my favourite places in Edinburgh is CC Blooms. It’s one of the best gay bars in the city – whether you are gay or straight, it’s the best place to let loose and dance to some Cheryl.
And let’s face it, dancing is the best way to seduce – fuck oysters and champagne. If your date can twerk, you are probably on to a keeper – or at the very least, you’ve had a very entertaining Fringe romance.
Oh, and I almost forgot – the best place to go on a date before you head to dinner; something to do together so that you have something to talk about during dinner…
Stephen Bailey: Neon Heart, of course, every day, 4.15pm at The Gilded Balloon.
Hope to see you at the Fringe.
