Trivia - A Matter of Life and Death

Following my shameful unwillingness to play in the comics versus critics football math the other week, I was press-ganged into taking part in a similar trivia quiz yesterday.

On the comics' side were Dave Gorman, Kevin Eldon off of the telly, and Irish stand-up Eddie Bannon, alongside me three student reviewers from the thrice-weekly Fest newspaper that's published up here.

Kevin Eldon

Unbelievably, people even came to watch this titanic clash in the Pleasance Cabaret Bar. So to make up the numbers, a know-it-all punter from the front row was appointed an honorary comic.

The questionmasters were Michael Legge and John Voce, fresh from receiving a one-star review from the website I run for their show The Conversation and this adding a nice undertone of bitterness, menace and revenge.

Michael Legge and John Voce

Not true, actually, they were the souls of sweetness even in their vicious diatribes against the reviewers' role.

So in we went, with questions on general knowledge, comedy, TV and the like. Dave Gorman proved himself a petty pedant, picking fault with the grammar and even punctuation of questions. But his rage at Eddie Bannon talking about Rod Hull's osterich was understandable. But that sort of anally-retentive mindset also makes for a good trivia knowledge, helping the comics establish an early lead.

Dave Gorman

To be honest, we never really recovered. What did for us was the topical round. Of course, having been closeted in the insular world of the Fringe for a fortnight or more, our knowledge of the outside world was almost nil.

Thankfully, our hosts had thought of that, and chose topical questions from 1972. Not so thankfully, these events came a decade and a half before my student teammates were even born.

But no excuses, we were beaten fair and square. And at least our dignity and pride was crushed in an entertaining way.

Not everything is so rosy in the Pleasance, though, and there are ever-growing murmurs of dissent among the comedians with evening shows there.

Their bugbear is that the venue has launched a 9.25pm showcase, Pick Of The Best, boasting: "Five top acts for the price of one".

Problem is, it's depleting the audiences at other shows around the same time after all, as one disaffected comic told me, who would risk a tenner on a show that might be good and might be rubbish, if there's a star-studded showcase on at the same time.

But it's hardly in the pioneering spirit of the fringe. And with a 700 capacity in the new Pleasance Grand where it's held, that's a lot of bums that aren't occupying seats elsewhere.