Festival diary: Encountering Eddie Izzard and where to find One Day stars at the Fringe

Director Nica Burns had her work cut out to be heard as she presided over the traditional after-lunch quiz, which provoked much agonising over some fiendishly difficult questions and even a jigsaw round.

Some of the trickiest posers included naming the winner of the main award who won congratulations from a serving Prime Minister (New Zealander Rose Matafeo in 2018), which comedian posts roller-blading videos on TikTok (Lou Sanders) and how many show are eligible for this year’s awards (a whopping 560).

Encountering Izzard

Eddie Izzard featured in not one, but two rounds at the quiz – with participants asked to recall how many marathons the comic ran in aid of Sport Relief – 43 in 51 days, remarkably – and a head-scratching anagram round (A Dizzied Red).

It was only a couple of hours later when Izzard, an official “alumni patron” of the Fringe, provided my first real celebrity sighting of the season.

He was tucking into the ever trusty fayre at the Thai Lemongrass, on Grindlay Street, as good a place as any for festival star-spotting due to its close proximity to the Traverse, Royal Lyceum Usher Hall and the home of The Lady Boys of Bangkok on Festival Square.

A One Day lesson

While many Fringe performers will know all about the origins of Richard Gadd’s Netflix series as part of Summerhall’s programme five years ago, the festival’s links with One Day are slightly lesser known, if pretty impressive.

David Nicholls, author of the best-selling book that famously begins and ends in Edinburgh, has recalled falling in love in the Scottish capital.

But he has insisted his book was inspired not by anyone in particular that he met in the city, but as a love letter to the city itself after travelling from Bristol with a group of friends putting on a Fringe show, who all crammed into a two-bedroom flat on Rankeillor Street, the south side street where the character Emma Morley lives in his book.

Ambika Mod, who plays Morley in the Netflix series, may still be in her 20s, but is already something of a Fringe veteran since her first visit with the Durham University Revue in 2015, including appearing with Andrew Shires as Megan from HR, the stage name for their comedy double act.

However, eagle-eyed One Day fans should keep a look out for two other stars of the series who bear more than a passing resemblance to each other.

Angus and Finlay Alderson have been around the Fringe for most of their lives as they are the twin sons of Pleasance director Anthony Alderson.

One Day’s casting director Rachel Sheridan has told how they “fell from heaven” when she was looking for suitable actors to play the twin brothers of Sylvie, the wealthy girlfriend of Dex, in the excruciatingly memorable episode where he meets her family.

Angus can be found this month appearing in Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants, a “Peaky Blinders-style romp” being staged by the Young Pleasance company. Finlay, meanwhile, has been “poached” by a rival Fringe operator, Gilded Balloon, for its bar staff, while he is pursuing a musical career.