The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society (ACMS for short) has been on my radar since before I even started visiting the Fringe, let alone performing. Every year it has appeared in some draft version of the schedule, but has never quite made it - it always felt intimidating to force the others to go to a show that starts at midnight, lasts three hours, and is full of some of the weirdest acts you could hope to see at the Fringe. But always appealing - run, originally, by Thom Tuck and John-Luke Roberts, and full of acts I really like. What more could you want?
Let’s get this out of the way - I was very lucky to get to perform here tonight. A genuine dream come true, to be doing ACMS, to be performing on stage at Monkey Barrel, just an absolute honour. I did a 10 minute routine without using the letter ‘e’ once (well, the intent at least). It’s maybe the 4th time I’ve done it, and it’s absolutely the most fun I’ve had doing it, near the top of the list of the most fun gigs I’ve done ever to be fair. It was very nice to have people even the next day come up to me in queues for other shows to tell me they enjoyed it. What a gig to get to do.
Enough about that! The other acts, my word. I’ve never laughed so hard at someone else’s holiday photos. Elf Lyons cracked me up with “The Woman On The Edge”. Acts whose names I have forgotten or never learnt were fast food workers and salon owners wandering through the crowd, Amy Annette spent much of her time asking people about bread. Just, full of stuff that couldn’t, wouldn’t, and even shouldn’t work at any other gig.
All of this is cultivated by Thom Tuck’s careful and continued stewardship of the night. He does a fantastic job of corralling the nonsense, ensuring the various heckles are permitted, and makes a gig that nominally lasts three hours feel barely half that. Tonight, he is joined as co-host by Joe Kent-Waters in character as Frankie Monroe, an act who I think - judging by every review I’ve ever read of his - is impossible to describe without comparison to Vic Reeves and The League Of Gentlemen, but it’s fantastic. Chaos abound!
The real secret to the success of the night, though, I think has to be the audience. This is an audience of such dedication and such… dare I say aptitude for being an audience? It’s practically a cult, to cut to the point. It is almost impenetrable for new people, with a near 30-strong list of permitted heckles, which means that most of these people have been to ACMS for years, they are here for the duration, they are up for weird stuff, and they are incredibly thoughtful about applying the permitted heckles correctly. And appropriately. They are comedy nerds and they are gracious with their enjoyment. You couldn’t ask for more.