Benjamin Salmon from Blowhole shares his festival highs and lows

Benjamin Salmon is at the Edinburgh Fringe with the theatre show he writes and stars in, Blowhole, about a gay, twentysomething man aspiring to be Billie Piper circa 1999. It is on at the Pleasance Dome at 2.50pm daily. Here he Salmon shares what he can't get enough of at the festival, his most embarrassing Edinburgh experience and the worst thing about the Fringe. Apart from the cost of accommodation, obviously…

Edinburgh binge

My favourite part of Edinburgh is the audiences. I dine out on the communal laughter and the communal intimacy that comes from having people in a space waiting to soak up something that’s transgressive, evolved and a little bit magic. 

Audiences are so up for it in Edinburgh, and there’s something about that which feels really punk, and really exciting - especially for when we share Blowhole with the people who come to see the show. 

I also absolutely adore weird comedy - and I mean ‘weird’, in the best possible way. Edinburgh is the best place to see comedy in all of its broadest and most nuanced forms, so I will absolutely see as many acts that feature clowning, or those that are just wildly eccentric - mainly because those are the shows that often have the most profound connection with their audiences. 

Edinburgh cringe

Back in the day, during my very first Fringe, I performed in a student play that was a contemporary apocalyptic reinterpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah. As you can tell, I’ve had quite the life. 

When we flyered for the show on the Royal Mile, we were dressed as the deathly figures who we portrayed in the play. We were covered in fake blood, and we all collectively lay on the ground as if we were dead, with flyers for the show just scattered around our motionless bodies. 

I like to think that I was in my Sex Pistols era, but it was all just really strange. Either way, I’ve certainly come a long way. 

Edinburgh whinge

I suppose what I’m not looking forward to is the excessive amount of male middle-class twats, who I’ll probably end up fancying. 

Unfortunately, the kind of man I begrudgingly find attractive tends to be fairly posh (but pretends not to be), with a massive annoying ego, and who is fairly funny but is absolutely nowhere near as funny or charming, as I am. 

Unluckily for both myself and the wider population, there is always an absolute tsunami of these kinds of pretentious and REALLY ANNOYING men lurking around the bars and alleyways of hilly Edinburgh. 

About 75 per cent of them will have gone to Durham University. 99 per cent of them will have a famous dad. And all of them will be BAD NEWS. And, dear reader, I’ve done far too much psychotherapy in recent years to relive past mistakes.

 So, please do keep me in your prayers as I attempt to avoid the posh fuckboys of comedy who will no doubt invade the festival and waste all of our time, once again. 

Published: 19 Aug 2023