Episode 1 Edinburgh Nights with Sue Perkins

saturation of an Edinburgh summer. We are here at the world's greatest

arts Festival and I will bring you the finest comedy, cabaret and

musical performances. Behind me is the world's most frightening photo

bomb ever! APPLAUSE

A big thank to Te Waka Huia. He is from New Zealand. Frightened and

aroused! Coming up, the international flavour continues with

dancing from Brazil, music from South Africa and exotic comedy from

West Bromwich. Please welcome a raw unknown who we have discovered this

year and we are hoping for big things this year. Please welcome

Frank Skinner! APPLAUSE

Hello, darling. Budget cuts! They said you wanted a dry our! We have

taken you literally. Frank, I never thought this, but it has been seven

years since you were in Edinburgh. Yes, doing a solo show. Yes,

standing up there on my own, it has been seven years, so I am doing the

whole festival, three weeks, no nights off, and I am going to kill

myself! Surely this is the time to spend three weeks away from home. I

have brought my family with me. There are people staying there,

though! If only you had Haka staying there! They were extraordinary. I

was dancing to that. It was a good dance. I saw your groin and move! In

a very confined area. That was unexpected. Let's take a look at you

in 1991. This is one of your earlier forays. This might be the statue

they made of you. That is when I won at the Perrier music award. --

comedy award. It was very, very exciting. In those days, it if you

won it, a flash mob would arrive at the gig on the night. The judges

would storm on stage with the award, flowers and champagne and there

would be a cavalcade! It was fantastic. It is now done at a

formal dinner. I was giving a man in the front row some terrible stick

that night. When I was presenting the champagne, I was a reformed

alcoholic so I thought it was inappropriate so I gave it to him in

the front row. You are still abusing members in the front row in your

show, Man In A Suit. I am gentle. There was a lot of emphasis on the

man's short trousers. There was a man with very, very short trousers

and was sitting like this for the whole thing. You know when you look

through the hole in the curtain to see the audience, that is all I

could see. I thought there was an alien in the front row! I referred

to it because it would upset me later in the evening. Over 20 years

on, what has changed for you about the Edinburgh experience? I have my

family with me. I used to get up at 4am, get up at 11am, and go and

season comedians who I could have seen in London. That is how the day

went. Now I go and see the amazing double man. Is that a euphemism? No,

no! I go to the museums. So, you see a bit of Edinburgh rather than just

the bar. I have never looked at the children's' fringe, there is lots of

weird stuff going on. Any recommendations for those with

children? Most of the shows for children over the age of three and

then I found one for children who are over two years of age. It said

it was about a dog who made an unlikely friendship with Death. It

is a personification of death. I am holding back on that! It seems a

little young to introduce people to the concept of mortality. I was

frightened about the write up myself! May be children are

different now. They love death! You talk about this in your show, but

how does your partner deal with it? My girlfriend is a comedy agent so

she is up here looking for fresh, good-looking talent. Not to replace

me at home! I do not think! That would be terrible! Going to

Edinburgh to look for a new partner! Yes, she told me about it and I paid

for her aeroplane fare. You often reference your relationship. Yes,

but I express my love for her as well as the conflict we find

ourselves embroiled in. I will leave you with that court. Will you stay

with us? Yes, it is a lovely sober. As the dehydration bites, take it

easy. -- sofa. We cannot squeeze everyone into the BBC tent, but we

have tried! The Green room is bursting at the seams. I have my

very own shoulder, at the comedy coalface, with people dressed as

medieval milkmaids or a giant parsnip. Here is Mark Watson looking

at the weird and wonderful world of the Fringe. Edinburgh is in full

swing with its chaotic and rambunctious glory! One thing that

emerges is that pretty much everybody here is here for the love

of it. Even if they can get carried away. One couple, David and Carol,

are so in love with comedy that they have committed to watch 300 shows

over 27 days. They want to break the record. This is them here. You

should get cracking! Hurry up! The city is busting with love all around

us. Onstage and off stage. There was a piece called Love, which Thomas is

to embrace the audience with the arms of the performers. -- which

promises to embrace. A comforting date of human contact

is what is needed after a hectic week. Other shows get up close and

personal in a more unsettling way. This comedian actress is doing one

of the smallest shows in the Fringe. It is in her own car. She is

desperate for the audiences affections.

So, that is a sign that love can very easily turn into something

intense and disturbing. I think I need to be somewhere else! And love

takes a darker turn in the Dark Room where the passion for video games is

turned into a black-hearted cult show. The audience chooses their own

adventure but then that leads them to bed doom. -- to their doom. You

die! In the The Generation of Z, they are scaring the audience in

their zombie world. There you go, in Edinburgh, even though shows that

delve into the macabre recesses of the human soul are done with such

excitement that they are a celebration, even in the midst of

death. There is still life and love. OK, Edinburgh is great,

goodbye! APPLAUSE

Well, fortunately, Mark was not killed by a zombie. He sustained a

flesh wound so he is fine. Apparently, according to management,

I have to keep 28 pages away from him as he joins us now. -- paces.

Mark Watson, everybody! Sorry, it is like a health and safety being. It

is a bit demeaning. I would be so cosy on the settee. Yes, but there

is no water. There is no excuse now. It is not contagious. You survived

your first week. Yes, but it was strange. I have had mixed feelings.

On one hand, I was chased by zombies but I was also hoped by those cool

people. I do not know what I preferred. When we filmed that

thing, this local bloke came up and said, is this real?

thing, this local bloke came up and said, is Yes, we are in the midst of

a zombie apocalypse! How the anxiety levels going into the second week? I

am struggling a little bit. It is quite easy to get over anxious

during the Fringe, and you lapse into these habits. Last year, I had

anxieties and I was drinking before the show. I was like a shopaholic

but with alcoholic! Get the hugs and zone out the zombies. It is not as

everywhere you go in Edinburgh, there are people foaming at the

mouth for you! There are no zombies here. I should hope not. It says

something about and read that you can be pursued by monks, people

dressed as Hitler, basically anything! OK, it is time for me to

go. They are coming from a! They like the taste of you, I think.

APPLAUSE Mark left to soon, it was only Nancy who arrived a little too

early for her own show! Mark will be back next week and you can catch in

at the Pleasance with his stand-up show, Flaws. I next guest is an

actress, comedian, clinical psychologist and now, following an

appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, she's written and produced

a spectacular dance show. Please welcome Pamela Stephenson Connerly!

Incredible CV I've just listed. Who would have thought you would get the

dancing bug? I really just wanted to be an air hostess! There's still

time! You took the skills you learned in Strictly Come Dancing and

you've created this extraordinary new show. It was so nice because I

rediscovered my love of dancing and found my way to a wonderful

Brazilian dance. Found your way! Turned left at the library. It's

called Brazuca. Arlene Phillips directed it. You've seen it, did you

like it? I loved it and so did the people there. It really is fun,

wonderful dancing, great story. I'm very proud of the cast, who have

come from social towns all over Brazil and the world and they are

brilliant. You can tell just from Frank's body language how much he

loved stance! I've never interfered with dance. You had to use that

word. I associate it with rejection and embarrassment. This is the dance

the U. - for you. I can walk up to other men and invite them to dance

and he will say yes. No more hanging out by the walls of this goes. Not

that discos exist any, kids! When I'm at the discotheque, I'm often

against the wall. Don't hurt me. You can be at a club and now in Brasilia

can just go up to somebody and not feel rejected. In some dances, some

social dances, you feel like a wallflower. This way, women have a

lot more control over the situation. For example, Frank, would

you like to dance? There's an answer. He's going to dance with me.

Where did you spring from? The great thing is, you dance with one and

another guy comes. The lovely thing is they will do anything for

attention. They get very dejected if you leave them.

What's going on? Is this OK with health and safety? And getting

involved with an audience member. Don't break her! Anything for

attention. Stop it! Magnificent! Please tell us... My

boys! I thought they were just members of the audience. My husband

Billy calls them Brylcreem luff REO 's. I call them every single night!

There are hundreds of comics currently... I will be trying it

later. She can dance, she can tell me when I'm doing my job wrong and

she can make me feel better for doing my job wrong! There are

hundreds of comics in Edinburgh for a month of 12 hour days. One hour

onstage, 11 hours wandering around drug telling anyone who will listen

about that one hour onstage. Where do you go to escape the reviewers,

the hecklers, the determined comedy groupies? Tony Law can show us.

I'm Tony Law and I'm here at the end of broth fringe first of all and I

laughed about a nickel gardens. I do. - I laugh the botanical Gardens.

I'm in Edinburgh to do is show with my wife and director and our two

trolls. There he goes. She sees art in what I do. My God,

that's a big plant! Really massive. The sort of stuff feeds you, can you

smell it? It's a bit prickly. I am genuinely looking forward to just

connecting to people who want to come to my stupid, crazy show.

Actually, it's quite sweet, but surreal and crazy at the same time.

I crave his hair. I'm worried I'm going to get his beard. You can

delve deeper into the strange mind of the Tone Zone at the stand. My

final guest is proof that marrying Michael Douglas or Harrison Ford is

a bad idea. She starred opposite them in Patriot games and Fatal

Attraction, which earned her an Academy Awards nomination. Now she

has taken to the stage in a play called The Trial of Jane Fonda.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Anne Archer!

Nice to see you, take a seat. A starlet is amongst us! Yes! We

referenced a few of your films. Presumably the sort of rough cobbles

and the tiny cramped spaces of Edinburgh, you aren't used that,

coming from Hollywood. I think it's fabulous here, so beautiful. I'm

sharing dressing rooms and having a whole new experience. It is strange,

yeah. Codeword for I've seen a stranger's general tools up close! -

genitals. What is the show that happens straight before yours? It's

the show that comes after me. I'm sharing a dressing room with

Michael, who is a friend. I miss the show before, I don't know who's

there, but I know about the show afterwards. Do you get the odour of

them? Oh yes. All the food and everything. The Trial of Jane Fonda

is spectacular. It tells of it - very interesting story, and meeting

between Hanoi Jane, as she was known, and some ex-Marines that

served in Vietnam and the clash of opinions that happen in this church

hall. Were you aware of the story before the play? Yes, I remember

when she was meeting with them. She is known as an anti-war activist.

Many vets hated her because she went to Hanoi and they took photographs

of her in North Vietnam sitting on an anti-aircraft gun. There are a

lot of reasons it happened and my husband did a lot of research and

retraced her steps and found out the true story. A lot of lies have been

told. We did a play that tells both sides of the story. The point of

view of the vets and the anti-war movement, Jane being the leader of

that anti-war movement. It's a pretty provocative,

thought-provoking play. For America, it sets the record straight. America

needs that. It feels like an untold story. Is it strange for you to play

somebody who is still living and very much still in the public

consciousness? It's hard. Usually they are gone. You can do whatever

you like! She is very much in the public eye. She doesn't have any

peculiarities or eccentricities in her mannerisms or her voice. You

have to try and capture her being and her viewpoint and own it within

yourself. I think it's working quite well. You didn't feel the need to do

an impersonation as such? Pretty impossible. I don't think you could

do that unless you were a mimic. I think I've captured her intonation

and her voice patterns to a great extent. People are aware of your

work. What they might not know it is you were involved in a pilot of a

cooking show, very extreme cooking show, we have a clip. It didn't make

it to air. Really? Everybody knows you should roast it

first. The question I want to ask you about that particular film...

I've heard there were two endings that were shot. Yes. We shot it with

a very realistic ending. Probably most of you have seen it. Where he

gets taken away, he is arrested for the murder of Alex. The audience

wasn't satisfied because they felt my character should get her

comeuppance against this woman who has destroyed our marriage. We went

back several months later. The shoot had finished? Yeah. She has to get

back in the bath? That was never in there! There was no bath in the

original ending. Probably almost a year later because it had already

been edited and screened and tested. They deseeded - decided they needed

another ending. I was upset because I had some amazing stuff in the

first ending. As it turned out it was such a huge hit, I thought, how

can you be so upset? They are just filming a new version and they need

you back. They are doing a Disney style version with a lot of show

tunes! Round of applause for Anne Archer! Pamela Stephenson and Frank

Skinner! We'll be back next week at the same time on BBC Two. The fund

carries on in the tent right now and you can stay with us by pressing red

at the end of the show. You can see more on BBC Four on Sunday and

there's a new performance everyday online. Playing us out tonight, the

magnificent Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who are performing at the

international Festival. Good night.