Where the audience is more noteworthy than the act

There's a curious phenomenon in Edinburgh Fringe venues, where some people come along not to see the act, but to grab centre stage themselves.  Some are hecklers who can help the act on, while others are there to destroy. Some are merely off their faces on something or other.

D. and I spent time and shoe leather tramping wet streets on Friday and ended up in a free show of which only politeness ensures I even mention the name. But Matt Tiller's Awkward Situation lived down to its aspirational name. As did the audience on this occasion.

For reasons known only to the venue organisers, they allowed in several batches of latecomers, thus assisting in an awkward beginning for this act. Some 7 or so young women (plus their tame bhoy) arrived after the first song had been sung.  Chatting, loudly and louder, they carried on their own conversation, not all about the act, but when looked at they assured the young chap attempting to entertain us, that they all fancied him. A novel way to get the act on-side and a credit to heckling. However, they carried on, and on and on. He did his best, but this lot were immune to hints broad and subtle.

Idly, I wondered if their behaviour was because they had finally been released for the summer from some boarding school for the daughters of the rich enough to farm them off somewhere out of sight. Sadly these aga-saga writers of the future will not remember devastating this lad's act at the beginning of his first(?) Fringe, due to their overindulgence in substances. And I wish I could advise him to forget them and carry on, but his act is rubbish and I see little hope of him developing into a mature entertainer.

Despite numerous proddings, D refused to walk out, so politeness (again) bade me sit and endure both act and wanna-be's for an interminable hour.  
This was the low point in a day filled with the scope of the Fringe from best to worst.

2b theatre company are staging Invisible Atom in Hill St Theatre.  As near to epic as you can get in one hour of intellectual blending of economics and science with eventual tragedy. I was left trying to analyse the meaning of this play for the remainder of the day.

Underneath the Lintel suffered from coming after Invisible Atom and would otherwise have had a better reception from me, but it was well acted and mildly amusing. I agree with the Irish Times that it was 'provocative [and] mournful' but would not have given it the 5 stars they did. We bumped into the actor afterwards and murmured appropriately encouraging noises, while he remarked on what a superb audience it had been. Interesting, but not sure why he thought that, I'd thought it an average audience, but what would I know and the perspective from the front must be quite different from the darkened seats.

We kept the best till last. What would Helen Mirren do? was a delight. So funny and so well acted with great comic timing by Anita Parry. There's something uplifting and comforting being in the presence of competent middle-aged womanhood that in entertainment terms cannot be surpassed. 

The odd thing is that there is more to write about when I dislike the show than when I do!?!