On the Mic: Five a Day Pilot Episode

On the Mic: Five a Day Pilot Episode

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe will take place from 01 – 25 August 2025.

We’ll be there every day with reviews, recommendations and a song! Five shows a day!

In this pilot, Martin Walker scoots round Edinburgh, checking out spaces that will become some of the Fringe’s main venues. He takes a look at Pleasance Courtyard, The Stand venues, PBH’s Free Fringe, Underbelly, the Gilded Balloon and the Assembly.

Martin also chats to Dani Rae, Managing Director of the Assembly Festival about their plans for this year.

And we end with a song, from Steve Goodie’s Steve’s Big Dumb Show!

On the Mic: Five a Day (pilot episode)

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Transcript – On the Mic: Five a Day (pilot episode)

Hi, I’m Sophie Mitchell. On the Mic: Five a Day is a daily comedy podcast brought to you from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It may contain language or views that some find offensive. It is written and produced without the use of AI.

So it’s a quiet, slightly windy, occasionally sunny day here in Edinburgh in June, I’m walking down a peaceful residential street near the South Side called The Pleasance. It’s a little cloudy, but if I look up, I can see the top of Carlton Hill. On my right is number 60, The Pleasance, a building owned by Edinburgh University and run for nine months of the year anyway, by students’ association. It’s quiet now, but in a few short weeks, it’s going to be a major hub for the largest arts festival in the world.

On the Mic: Five a Day will kick off at the start of the Edinburgh Fringe on August 1st, I’ll be reviewing and recommending five shows a day. As I record, it’s mid-June, the Fringe hasn’t started yet, so my first pick is my favourite show from last year, coming back to Edinburgh in 2025.

Abby Wambaugh: The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows had its Edinburgh debut right here at the Pleasance Courtyard in 2024. A one-person comedy Variety Performance featuring straight stand up, absurdism, impressions, prop comedy, you name it. I interviewed Abby about the show on last year’s On the Mic: Origin Stories podcast. If you scroll down to Episode 58, you’ll find it there. I saw the show on the back of that interview, and my goodness, I’m glad I did.

On the Mic: Five a Day – at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Martin Walker.

My second pick isn’t a show or a venue, but a collection of venues. I’ve walked north from The Pleasance across the Waverley railway station, down Leith Street, and then on to the top of Leith Walk. I’ve passed Carlton Hill on my right and the Omni shopping centre on my left, which has some public art on its roof that can only be described as a big lump of poo.

Walking past St Mary’s Cathedral, now past the Conan Doyle pub, close to where the Sherlock Holmes author was born, and turning into York Place as a tram goes past, we are very close now to my favourite all year-round comedy venue in Britain, The Stand.

I’ve arrived at 28 York Place on the north east edge of Edinburgh’s New Town. Further up the road, at number 5 is The Stand’s permanent base. But, number 28, this beautifully preserved 18th century building, is a rather nice hotel. Normally. During August, The Stand takes over. This is the home of Stand Three and Stand Four. If you’re in Edinburgh during August, looking for comedy, The Stand is a really good place to start. Fringe favourites, Vladimir McTavish, Jo Caufield, Robin Ince, Richard Herring and Paul Sinha are all performing here and down the road at the main Stand Comedy Club sees the return of Mark Thomas, Tom Stade, Jay Lafferty, and my recommendation base yourself in the York Place area for two or three days and see as much as you can across The five Stand venues. It’s what I’m gonna do. All right, let’s head back up across the city.

On the Mic: Five a Day – dinae ken wha te start? Go to edfringe.com/tickets

I’m back on the other side of the city, and I’m walking past Argyle House. If you’re a fan of the Netflix show, Department Q, you’ll recognise this as entrance to the police HQ in the show. And now I’m on Spital Street, the castle dominating the scene behind me, walking towards the Footlights Bar and Grill, formerly the Footlights and Firkin. And it’s here, so legend has it, that in 1996 the Free Fringe was born.

Tired of unreasonable higher charges and high ticket prices, comedian Peter Buckley Hill, known to most people as PBH, talked the bar into giving him and a few pals some free space to perform a new show called simply, Peter Buckley Hill and Some Comedians. The show was free with a bucket collection at the end – and a massive, massive success. PBH had launched a model that endures to this day. It’s been copied and adapted, but almost 30 years later, there are hundreds and hundreds of free shows to choose from during the fringe in Edinburgh. And by the way, Londoners listening to this should check out the PBH Weekender on the 27th -29th of June, go to linktr.ee/pbhweekender for the details.

On the Mic: Five a Day – supporting free shows

So past Edinburgh College of Art, past the enormously posh, George Herriot School. And I arrive at Bristol Square. To my left is the Edinburgh Uni students, hub, Potter Row, or the Pleasance Dome, as it is in August, the Dome will be hosting loads of acts. Superior clown, Elf Lyons, five stars, poet Luke Wright, five stars. To my right is McEwan Hall, the 19th century A list of building, where students eventually hope to graduate. It’s one of the Underbelly venues, and will feature, amongst other acts, the best reviewed comedy show of 2024 fringe ventriloquist, Nina Conti. This entire Bristo Square area will be an open-air bar. In front of me is Teviot House, if you can hear some building work in the background, that’s because what’s normally the HQ of the Gilded Balloon venues is currently a building site.

So, a very quick walk down Teviot, and on my left is Appleton Tower, which will be the main Gilded Balloon venue this year. In this very building, Alan Davies, Yeah, him of QI on the telly, will be performing. Also one of my favourites, multi-talented character comedian Susan Harrison.

On the Mic: Five a Day – Ya heid’s mince? Go to edfringe.com/tickets

And so we arrive at George Square Gardens, where lots of marquees, pop up bars and toilets will make up the Assembly and Underbelly, George Square venues. On the far side, the Underbelly will house, well, a massive inflatable purple upside-down cow, probably the most unique venue at the Edinburgh Fringe. And on my 2025 must see list, Cabbage the Clown’s debut. Polyamorous, holy matrimony in the name of drag. What’s not to like?

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George Square is where students come and hang out. Have a bit of a chill. The birds are singing. Trees everywhere. This is going to be a fringe hub. And to tell us more about that, I’m delighted that I’m joined now by a director at Assembly. Dani Rae…

Hi Dani.

Hello!

Hey, how are you doing?

All right, how are you?

I’m good. Thanks. You know, I’m looking around… all these beautiful trees. It’s difficult to imagine what this space will be transformed into.

Well, actually, it’s interesting. This year, we’re changing up a little bit, because these lovely trees keep growing, so we have to keep adapting. So actually, where you would normally see the big tent, the Palais du Variété is switching to where you would normally see the Tree House. So, we’re basically flipping the the garden a little bit.

What is your role? Dani, within the Assembly?

I am Managing Director of Assembly Festival. And yeah, I guess I do a lot of the boring bits. I do the people and the money and spreadsheets and the insurance and all the things, that make the make it all kind of come together from a legal perspective. But I used to be a producer of theatre and circus and that sort of thing. And so I have grown up on this festival pretty much. From an usher at the Traverse, right the way up to where I am now. So, proving what the journey is you can do on this festival as a career.

And you started just before the pandemic, is that right?

I did. I joined in July 2019, had six, six months of, oh, this is going to be great. And then March 2020, and the arse fell out the world. And so, yeah, we had to navigate not doing a festival. We did a fundraiser for freelancers at the time. So I hula-hooped in a different Edinburgh location every day of what would have been the fringe in 2020, which was fun. And then, yeah, we’ve navigated that. We did a project with City of Culture in Coventry in ‘21 and ‘22 and we now also, partner with Unique Events on Edinburgh’s Christmas and Edinburgh Hogmanay. So it’s kind of grown since, since 2019.

So, we’re in the gardens. To the left of us are, or what will be, the Studio spaces. And in front of us, just over the fence, is where one of my personal favourites, Susie McCabe, is performing.

Oh, I’m so excited for Susie to be in that space. So she’s… it feels like she’s kind of grown up with us a little bit, doing Studio Three and the like over the years, and now getting to do G.A.T. It’s just a it’s a dream. Actually, I’m so excited to go in there and see her, because she’s awesome.

She is awesome. But this wasn’t the original home of Assembly. Was it? You started way up on the other side of the city. The Assembly began life in the Assembly Rooms.

It did well, so, back in 1980 I think it was, our founder, William Burdett-Coutts, who was up trying to find a venue for a production that he was directing, and the council offered him the Assembly Rooms, and said, “do you want the whole thing?” It was, it’s kind of the aftermath of it being the Festival Club. And before that, the International Festival had it as their first kind of club. And things, my grandmother went to that, which is a beautiful bit of symmetry for me. And so, yeah, the multi space, multi venue operator was born by William kind of going, “okay, but we’re gonna need some more shows”. So he put something like eight shows on in that 1981 festival, and now we’ll have like eight shows a day in each of the spaces. But it’s beautiful, and we love it. We love being in the Assembly Rooms. It’s such a gorgeous space. And we’ve taken over the street outside as well, where we have a beautiful Bijou, another Spiegeltent, and that works really nicely out there as well. And it’s just good to kind of spread it out across the city a bit more as well. So nice to be over that side of town. Then we have Assembly Hall on the Mound. So when you come out of Waverley Station, first thing you see is our beautiful banners on Assembly Hall at the top there. Jason Byrne plays in there. And he loves it, because it’s kind of, you can have a lot of people in it, but it still feels really intimate. And he can still do his thing, kind of, getting to know the audience and but you can be up in the rafters of that and still be able to identify who that person is down at the bottom. So I love that space as well. It’s great for circus, and it’s really, really works out well in that space, you can pretty much have a good time whatever you’re seeing. Then our year round home, the Assembly Roxy, which is an old church, Lady Glenorchy’s Church, has been there forever. And that’s kind of between Pleasance and the Festival Theatre. And we’ve got three spaces in there. And again, during fringe, take over the street outside and put a beautiful garden and the newly named Roxy Boxy out there.

The Roxy Boxy?

Yeah, much discussion in our team as to what to call that, and William decided it should be Roxy Boxy. So that’s what’s happening. And it’s beautiful. Last year we ran that as a sustainable venue, so with things like reusable cable ties and all that sort of stuff in there. So I’m hoping that we get to do a bit more of that this year, because that’s really important. We have these kind of container venues, and we have one over at George Square here they’ve called The Box just over the fence. And the comedians, in particular, emerging comedians, really love that space, to the point where we now have three of those. So we’ve got The Box, The Crate, and Roxy Boxy. We’ve also got Checkpoint – Assembly Checkpoint, which is over on Bristo Place, so just off Bristo Square, which will have an excellent programme in there again, and very excited to keep running that. We love that. And there’s going to be a new restaurant underneath it as well, so you can get your snacks and treats before you go upstairs for a drink and a show. And then over here at George Square. So we’ve got the two tents in the gardens here Gordon Aikman Theatre, as we spoke about there, named by the university for an incredible fund raiser for motor neuron disease, so proud to proud to use its full title. And then we have Studios One through to Five that take place in the lecture theatres around here. And we, we make em, we make em pretty, we make em good for comedy, good for theatre. Police Cops have done their time in there as well. So it’s, it’s, it’s a good vibe.

I don’t know Police Cops.

Police Cops. You’ve never seen Police Cops Martin, yeah?

I haven’t.

You will absolutely love them. And this year, they’re back with their original show, Police Cops: The Original. Good. Loving this, loving that. Oh, man, I can’t believe you’ve never seen them. The quote I’m just reading at the moment from Stuart Lee is, “it takes brains to be this dumb”.

Sounds good to me. So how many spaces is that all together?

That’s a lot,

Yeah

Which is great, I guess, if everything goes to plan. But the last time I bumped into you was here, right here, and all the power was out.

Yes, as you witnessed me right here, last year.

You were amazingly calm.

No, I mean, I’ve got a really brilliant team, and if, if they’re not panicking, I’m not panicking, you know. So I think in that situation, the first thing you have to do is to figure out how widespread it is and try and figure out how long it’s going to take to come back on. And it happened at the beginning of the festival, which was fortunate, because it meant we were at a place where not everything was jam packed, and everybody just kind of rallied round. It’s amazing how we then had to rely on technology in a different way, because, you know, batteries were going flat, or signal was nowhere to be found because the WiFi wasn’t there, but as long as we were able to keep people entertained and fed and watered, then it’s not much else he can do until the power comes back on.

And the beer was still working.

Yeah. The Beer, the beer was working.

Thanks for your time, Dani, before you go, a few more recommendations, maybe. We’ve already mentioned the brilliant Susie McCabe and Police Cops: The Original, which I’m very much looking forward to seeing. Anything else you want to recommend?

Yeah, we’ve got Kate Dolan coming back. I got to see her last year. I’m really proud of the amount of women that we have actually in our programme, female comic comics and non-binary comics, and Susie McCabe and Kate Dolan, absolutely the forefront of that. We’re co-producing Frisky’s Reshuffle. They came to the Roxy to do a bit of rehearsals a couple of weeks ago. And so no two shows are going to be the same because the audience get to choose the genre that they might sing a song in, and it all comes with Frisky’s, incredible banter. So I think it’s going to be so good. So that’s in the Palais. And I’m very excited about that one. We’ve got Jordan Gray back as well. And there’s the effect that Taskmaster is having on comics that are around as well. We’ve got a Takashi Wakasugi from who was on Taskmaster Australia. And there’s, there’s lots from Taskmaster New Zealand and Taskmaster Australia, that are kind of putting forward these comics. And again, it just changing the face a little bit of what’s happening in the fringe, which is very exciting. All hail Alex Horn, right?

Absolutely

On the Mic: Five a Day – Like, comment, rate and subscribe. It really helps.

Thanks to Dani Rae, Managing Director of Assembly Festival. She’s one of the good guys. Today we looked at Assembly, Underbelly, Pleasance and the Gilded Balloon venues, known around here as the Big Four, also the Stand Comedy Club and PBH’s Free Fringe. I haven’t had time to talk about the relatively new venue, Hoots who are running a couple of spaces. Also there’s The Monkey Barrel, Just the Tonic and TheSpace with multiple performance stages across the city. And then there’s the Laughing Horse Free Festival. Their shows are free with a donation at the end, or you can book a ticket in advance to guarantee entry, at a price you can afford. And we’ll be back in August covering it all.

Every On the Mic: Five a Day episode will end with some musical comedy. And so, performing in August at Laughing Horse @ Freddy’s, from Steve’s Big Dumb Show, take it away Steve!

Hi, I’m Steve Gooding, and I’m On the Mic. This is a parody of the song Life is a Highway from my Edinburgh show. Steve’s Big Dumb Show.

SONG: My Wife’s in a Five Way

That was My Wife’s in a Five Way, from my show, which is all about goofy musical nonsense and also about bashing the current president of the United States. The show is called Steve’s Big Dumb Show, and it’s on at Freddy’s at 3:30pm from 31st July through to the 24th August. Please make me and my show one of your five way, I mean, I mean five a day. That’s what I mean.

This episode of On the Mic: Five a Day was brought to you from The Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Thanks for listening. We are very grateful to Sorcha Judge and their team at the Fringe office. Thanks also to Amanda Emery, Bex Colwell, David Burns, Flick Morris, Gaby Jerrard, Jane Walker, Julian Hall, Madelaine Bennett, Marissa Burgess, Mel Brown and Paul Sullivan.

On the Mic: Five a Day was written and presented by Martin Walker. Find us at onthemic.co.uk, Apple Tunes, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Like, comment, rate and subscribe, it really does help. My name’s Sophie Mitchell, see you next time!

PBH Weekender 27^th-29^th June 2025, in London https://linktr.ee/pbhweekender

The twenty three shows mentioned in this episode:

Abby Wambaugh: The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/abby-wambaugh-the-first-3-minutes-of-17-shows

Alan Davies: Think Ahead https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/alan-davies-think-ahead

Cabbage the Clown: Cinemadrome https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/cabbage-the-clown-cinemadrome

Elf Lyons: The Bird Trilogy https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/elf-lyons-the-bird-trilogy

Frisky’s Reshuffle https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/frisky-s-reshuffle

Jason Byrne: Head in the Clouds https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/jason-byrne-head-in-the-clouds

Jay Lafferty: Ooft! https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/jay-lafferty-ooft

Jo Caulfield – Bad Mood Rising https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/jo-caulfield-bad-mood-rising

Jordan Gray: Is That a C*ck in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Here to Kill Me? https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/jordan-gray-is-that-a-c-ck-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-here-to-kill-me

Kate Dolan: The Critic https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/kate-dolan-the-critic