Edinburgh Festival `99: Diary

Karl Minns of Comic Trio The Nimmo Twins

WE HAD one of those laughers in yesterday. Front row. Female. Seemingly respectable. Until the first sketch. Imagine, if you will, the sound of a pregnant seal dry-humping a fog-horn while being hand-wrung through a creaky mangle, and you're more or less there. We're not stand- ups, so negotiating sketches around the aural bomb-site that was this woman's guffaw proved a joyously tricky manoeuvre. In the end, I attacked her with a broom in the black-out. Short of pouring boiling water on her or putting down pellets it's the only surefire way.

Our first insane laugher is a true sign that the festival has really kicked off. Every show becomes a microcosm of the whole festival: pain, stress, laughter, blood, sweat, gravy, egg and tears. It's ground-in dirt. Coincidences? Tubbs, the behemoth of our triumvirate, is currently the star of Flora margarine's new campaign and ended up on stage assisting the Korean axe-wielders in Cookin' at the Assembly Rooms. Andrew, our cuddly Number Two, is featured in Alex Lowe's wonderful True Adventures of Radio 1 during the Zoe Ball breakfast takeover. And me? Last year our show was called Charged and Sentenced. Last night, I was thrown out of the Traverse Theatre for "borrowing" a rather cheeky Mitchelton '97 from the wine cellar. Got to laugh though, haven't you. Which reminds me: Perrier are in today. Seal-woman, where are you?

Pleasance, Venue 33, 3.45pm, to 30 Aug