James Poulter and Graham Duff pride themselves on giving us the facts about every drug from caffeine to smack, and even reindeer urine. Thankfully, these facts are delivered with the air of a couple of That's Life! side-men who have obviously been, er, carrying out extensive research, and are interspersed with warnings such as, "Remember, 90% of doctors don't take Ecstasy – because if they did and their beeper went off, they'd start dancing to it." The much-vaunted "free samples" are of legal substances only: a qat infusion, a herbal E-substitute and Stella Artois – personally, all I felt after smoking a fag through a rotting green pepper was a sensation of mild embarrassment. The perfect briefing session on surviving the Fringe in all its off-duty glories.
Written for The Independent.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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