BBC Breakfast viewers were left less than impressed by the programme's coverage of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on Friday, August 7, with some fuming 'enough' and others muting their televisions.
Chaotic segments from the festival
Charlie Stayt and Sarah Campbell hosted the morning programme, which featured segments from the Edinburgh Fringe throughout. The festival, which includes more than 3,500 acts, kicked off on Friday, with BBC reporter Fiona Lamdin introducing some of the performers.
Sarah introduced the coverage by saying: "We can call it chaos there this morning, Fi where are you, what are you doing?" At one point, Fiona was held in the air by a sumo wrestler, and she also spoke to circus performers, a Frank Sinatra impersonator, and sea-shanty singers.
Gyles Brandreth's appearance
Fiona also had a segment with Gyles Brandreth, who was attending the first day of the festival. Speaking to "one of Britain's greatest storytellers," Fiona asked Gyles about his time with the sumo wrestlers.
Gyles replied: "I'm loving this! I do my morning workout with the sumo wrestlers here everyday. But look who I've come with, my lucky mascot. My Edinburgh lucky mascot. This is Judi Dench's teddy bear, dating from 1934. She leant it to us for our show, because Judi Dench was the first guest on my podcast Rosebud, and the show is all about memories. Happy memories and also sad memories at times, it's a rollercoaster about memory."
He went on to describe the audience participation in his show: "We go on, we sing songs, we do dances, we throw a ball into the audience. If you catch the ball, you have to throw out a letter of the alphabet and then I have to tell a story inspired by that letter."
After Fiona gave him the letter 'D', Gyles told a story about meeting the Duke of Edinburgh, saying: "Prince Phillip, when I met him, he said to me, 'if you ever see a man opening the car door for his wife, it's either a new car, or a new wife'."
Viewers' reactions
While Gyles expressed his excitement, some viewers were unimpressed. One person fumed: "Enough!" while another said: "If I don't like it, I mute it." Someone else slammed: "Making the Fringe look completely s***e."
Another agreed: "It's definitely not selling it to me!" Someone else wrote: "Hahaha fs," as another said: "Cringe." One viewer admitted stepping away from the TV, saying: "Cuppa for me."
However, one viewer did enjoy the scenes, writing: "Put more on tomorrow, its given me a great laugh."
BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One and iPlayer.
