August 2nd, 2026
Sunday morning he walks mum from her B&B on the Royal Mile to Topping & Company for the first curated stop, and halfway down the fiction table a voice behind him says "Ollie Brennan, Frog and Bucket, 2014" — Marcus Pryce, the booker who programmed his first paid slot at the Manchester Comedy Store when he was nineteen, who is now in Edinburgh with a new act of his own.
What happened
Sunday morning he walks mum from her B&B on the Royal Mile to Topping & Company for the first curated stop, and halfway down the fiction table a voice behind him says "Ollie Brennan, Frog and Bucket, 2014" — Marcus Pryce, the booker who programmed his first paid slot at the Manchester Comedy Store when he was nineteen, who is now in Edinburgh with a new act of his own. Pryce claps Ollie's shoulder in front of his mum and says, "Your boy's the real thing, love, told you." Mum smiles. Ollie's face does the freeze — the chest-twitch the room reads as a grin and only he knows is not. Decision: he introduces Pryce as "an old mate" and steers mum firmly toward the crime section.