Gail Porter

The star of the Fringe

From our UK edition

Attention spans at Edinburgh are brief. With thousands of shows on offer, the punters have to make a split-second decision based on the title and the poster. A blunt descriptive name works best, hence the popularity of Dan Kelly: How I Went to Every Supermarket in the World. Kelly spent 11 years as a data analyst collecting the prices of 164 basic items from supermarkets on every continent. The information was sold to international firms that needed to calculate the salaries of their overseas staff. Kelly, a solitary and obsessive character, liked to tour the shops with a dictaphone taped to his chest and to record the prices by muttering into the hidden microphone, like a spy. His adventures are limited to shopping centres in large cities so his observations lack surprises.