Going orange for the weekend

As it's last thing on a Friday afternoon, I thought I'd provide you with some highly topical weekend entertainment. You may remember a few weeks back that Marieke did her best to shoe horn a story about the world cup onto our blog. Some may have called it a form of 'ambush blogging'!

What neither Marieke or I knew at the time was that we had a highly legitimate Hoipolloi / World Cup story to share with you!

And here it is...

Some of you may remember Ben Frimston from his appearances in our shows (including The Doubtful Guest) and also an ongoing series of entries on this blog highlighting a variety of adverts that he's appeared in, from Burger King to the now infamous Rowntree's Randoms advert.

He's actually currently appearing in a new advert, but you'd be forgiven for not having seen it unless you live in the Netherlands.

So this is where this post finally gets highly topical. First off, let's actually see the advert we're talking about:



And now you'll begin to understand the topicality.

Those of you following the World Cup may remember a story a few weeks back where a group of young ladies were ejected from a stadium and subsequently arrested for a cunning piece of ambush marketing whilst dressed in bright orange dresses. They were basically advertising a Dutch beer called Bavaria. And this is the same company that Ben is advertising in the advert above! In fact, I believe this advert is the first appearance of the infamous orange dress the girls were wearing.

I'm sure you all know that Holland have reached the final and as Marieke and I both have Dutch heritage (although Marieke can actually speak the language), we'll be cheering for them on Sunday.

Who do you want to win?

I was slightly disheartened to hear that Paul, the score-predicting Octopus, had plumped for a Spanish victory although I'm also reliably informed that there's a parrot in Singapore who's put his money on the Dutch.

So will it be the octopus or the parrot who gets it right?

Posted by Simon Bedford (Producer, Hoipolloi)
And thanks to TwicePix for the image

No problem, monkey socks

Obviously we're not paying our actors enough! Ben Frimston, who has performed in Hoipolloi's last five ensemble shows, most recently playing Charlie in The Doubtful Guest, has burst onto our TV screens with a starring role in a Rowntree's Randoms advert. And a very fine performance it is too.

We like to think he learned everything he knows about nonsense whilst performing in My Uncle Arly. And I'd like to take this opportunity to warn him that we'll be calling him 'Monkey Socks' forever more.

Tragically, our Doubtful Guest posters and flyers had been printed by the time the ad came out. Had we been able to include 'Starring Ben Frimston, Star of the Rowntree's Randoms advert' it would have sent our ticket sales through the roof.

But you can still see him for yourself in The Doubtful Guest at the Traverse from 18 to 30 August (with no performance on the 24th; click here for full performance details and to book.)

Of course, we wouldn't normally use the blog to carry adverts. But for Ben, we'll make an exception. Enjoy!

And if you're off to Latitude this weekend, come and find us with Hugh Hughes in the Theatre Tent on Sunday at 12.10pm...