The Most Toast

Tuesday 5th August

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Putting an itinerary together for four different people can be hard work, soul-destroying, invigorating, stressful and rewarding, to pick five phrases at random.

I always try to pick a balance of differing styles of shows, some favourite performers, performers who, hopefully, will become future favourites, some shows you know what to expect and some shows you haven't got a clue about.

As my 25th festival approached my award (sadly there is no cash prize) for the best blurb in this year's Edinburgh festival fringe brochure went to "The Most Toast" for "Someone in the audience will have eaten the most toast, and we will find them". (Oddly, this is found in the Events section of the brochure and labelled Thriller).

I picked the show because my wife likes toast and she nearly fell off the sofa laughing when I read her the synopsis. Ironically, due to catching COVID a few days before we travelled up she missed the festival and I (who doesn't like Toast at all) attended the show alone.

I have seen hundreds of shows over the years and, honestly, it's one of the weirdest ones I have ever seen. On entering the venue you are given a sticker to write your name on, so clearly this is going to be an audience participation driven show. And so it starts. Our inquisitive host for the evening (Ollie Horn) selects an audience member and asks ' How much toast have you eaten "? Clearly, people need to know does he mean today or forever. But all Ollie will repeat is "How Much Toast Have You Eaten? Eventually people realises he will give nothing away and would guess a figure. He would ignore any answers involving the number of loaves and concentrate upon only the number of slices devoured.

This is where the fun starts. Obviously every number provided is random and this is not enough for Ollie. He gets them to break it down precisely and asks someone in the audience who is good with figures to verify the calculations. This may sound like a boring show but this is where the genius of the show lies. Basically, this is an Improv show with Ollie riffing off the audience. Because the concept is so weird people are unsure how to respond and we go down some strange rabbit holes and there is obviously a meandering conversation with a drunk person. The moment of the night (and possibly my festival) occurred when  a gentleman vehemently defended his figure and when our host discovered he was a Sub Postmaster General he immediately replied "and they are notoriously accurate with figures". As a hiss from the audience reverberated around the auditorium Ollie had to turn away from us to give himself a moment to recover. Someone yelled out he was The Toastmaster General and the crowd erupted again.

This show can only work if the host is up to the task in hand and here we are fortunate to have Ollie Horne (who has a solo show " Bet I Can Make You Laugh") on top form and provides one of the greatest comic performances I have ever seen. He remains deadbeat through most of the hour, but knows when to hold a pause, keep eye contact, raise an eyebrow and deliver a killing line eg to the foreign lady who wouldn't give a figure stating "we don't have bread in my country" he enquired "respectfully, why are you here"?

He has a helper on stage, who although she remains silent keeps score on a white board and occasionally adds withering comments eg , he's flirting, Russian, Still got it etc..

The greatest compliment I can give is that I really wasn't in the mood for silliness going into the Apex hotel on Grassmarket and came out with a huge grin on my face chatting to a girl similarly beaming from ear to ear. She admitted that she had just moved to the Scottish capital and this was only the second show had seen at the festival. She is a therefore a lucky person to strike comic gold so quickly and also witness a show that sums up exactly what a fringe show can be.

Hysterically funny, weird, strange and perfectly fits the "Only at the Fringe category". 

The show only runs on Tuesdays. You will have a great time, even if you don't like Toast! (DC)

The Most Toast runs on Tuesdays until 19th August at Hoots @ The Apex - details here