All Fairy and Square

GoodGym were invited to join the team of stewards looking after Bedlam Fair, an outdoor street festival as part of Bath's Fringe Festival.

In the end only one GoodGymer was available for the duty, but it turned out to be the most fun mission I’ve been on!

After arriving at Komedia, the festival HQ, for the steward briefing, we got given our hi-viz Bedlam Fairy vests, and mucked in with writing up the chalk boards showing the running order, before heading out into the streets for the main event.

The fair has a variety of events and quirky performers stationed and/or roaming round various parts of the city centre, and we had a rota pairing us to hang out in various strategic spots around the event - ostensibly just to make sure nothing untoward happened and hand out leaflets, but also in these tricky times to try to ensure crowds didn’t build up too big!

First up I was given a double shift in Kingsmead Square, in the centre of which was an old milk float painted pink and kitted out with an old-fashioned printing press on board!

By itself, the Pink Milkfloat was a low key attraction, but we were shortly joined by Rimski & Handkerchief - a rather delightful musical act featuring a bicycle driven pianist along with a double bassist on a tricycle.

After their first slot, R&H went off for a refreshment, while I stood guard over their wheeled contraptions - to date, probably my oddest GoodGym assignment...

... but that accolade didn’t last long, as for my third slot I trotted a few yards down to New Street, to steward something called Bureau of Silly Ideas. The bureau being, as you have no doubt guessed, a set of radio controlled road cones, together with two radio controlled wheelie bins.

What followed was a totally fun-filled forty minutes of overseeing unsuspecting passers-by being harassed, pestered, beeped at and occasionally squirted at by said stack of cones and bins.

Next on to Saw Close for several acts including a game of live-action Hangman (the spelling game, you know it) in which I managed to have an actual cameo role at one point, a puppet act, and then a somewhat left-field (even for Fringe!) act involving three guys rolling out some red carpets. Er…

That was supposedly my last shift, but I was in my element, so stuck around and boogied along to Acid House Therapy, a musical DJ entertaining the folks in Kingsmead Square next to the milkfloat.

For once, no gardening, digging, nor painting took place - but in proper GoodGym fashion I scored a cup of coffee and a packet of left-over custard creams as rewards at the end of the day.