Marjolein Robertson on the best and worst of the festival

Shetlands-born comedian Marjolein Robertson is back at the Edinburgh Fringe with her new stand-up show Marj, at Stand 1 at 5pm. Here she shares what she can't get enough of at the festival, her most embarrassing Edinburgh experience and the worst thing about the Fringe. Apart from the cost of accommodation, obviously…

Edinburgh binge

I love getting to guest and collaborate with other performers, that's when whole new ideas and jokes can appear. 

For example, last year John Robertson asked me to be a guest in his show The Dark Room, I was like ‘Cool! I should make a character to match that of The Guardian [Robertson’s intimidating dungeon-master style host]’. 

Spent a whole day writing, practising and ordering a costume to be Norse Goddess of the afterlife: Hel. Turned up at the show completely in character with accent and all… only to find out I was meant to come along and promote my own Fringe show as Marjolein Robertson, the regular 'human' that I am. 

But I was Hel. So I didn't promote my own show once.  Commitment to the bit. 

Anyway, sometimes I now like to be Hel, which is kinda cool. 

Edinburgh cringe

Ah right, so, I should explain that I was doing Fringe hours before I was doing five-minute slots.

Living in Shetland, I would spend my year writing and performing to an empty room as practice. I had no understanding of all these things such as PR, competitions or friends. So when I did my first hour in a PBH Free Gringe venue for the month I said 'yes, of course this is my debut' bearing in mind I had never actually really gigged before. Maybe a handful, sporadically here and there, that’s all. 

At one of my shows during this debut run a man came in who tried to sit in the last empty seat that I was reserving for a friend, who, spoilers, never came. 

I told him he couldn't sit there, he looked uncomfortable and didn't want to sit on the floor. So I offered him the last stool in the room, the one on stage I would keep my pint on. I wiped it with my sleeve. He sat up by me and immediately I tied him in to being an integral part of the show, pretending he was  my husband. 

The more he complied but hated it, the more funny it was (this is comedy, this isn't a real entrapped marriage, go away police). At the end of the show when I was holding the bucket. He came up to me raging. And said ‘I was your judge.’

And for two whole years I didn't even know what he was on about. Now I know. I spaffed that debut away by literally hitting on my judge in front of a room full of people. If I had been nominated, it would have been very problematic. 

Edinburgh whinge

Flyers. There are too many flyers. And you might not think it's a problem, but think about how many trees get slaughtered just so a comedian can have their face on a flyer some member of the public ends up using to wipe sriracha sauce out of their eyes. 
It's an unbelievable waste of materials and power in this day and age of technology and magic. And the deaths of those poor trees.

 I can prove it: there used to be trees in Bristo Square. Where are they now? I'll tell you. They're in a rubbish tip, rotting, with the images of comedians on then, smiling through the pain of knowing that the photo they were posing for was going to be on 3,000 flyers that they had to try to hand out and then eventually dump. 

Can we not just walk around with etch-a-sketch informational boards instead?

Published: 15 Aug 2023