Edinburgh, Ep. 16

Saturday

Aug292015

Saturday, August 29, 2015 at 8:18AM

August 29, 2015 — For our seventh show in eight consecutive days at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Literary Death Match was wild-minded genius from end to end as the fantastic night ended with Julie Mayhew trumping co-finalist Dan Tyte in a tense LDM Spelling Bee III finale that won Mayhew the LDM Edinburgh, Ep. 16 crown.

But before the finale was a consideration, the show opened with Julie Mayhew, reading from her latest novel, The Big Lie, an excerpt about a Nazi girl scout. Then up stepped performance poet and award-winning blogger Alvy Carragher, who read a dark and moving poem about a girl being raped at a party.

The mic was then handed to the trio of all-star judges: Tom Salinsky (co-writer of EdFringe 2015's Impossible); Declan Michael Laird, Scottish actor featured in BBCOne's River City; and Mark Billingham, best selling crime fiction writer, author, actor and stand up comedian. The trio heaped endless praise in the direction of both readers before huddling up and making the late-afternoon's first impossible decision, declaring Mayhew as the first finalist.

Then came Round 2, kicked off by the tandem of Alecos Papadatos and Abraham Kawa, and while Kawa read from their co-written book Democracy, Papadatos did an illustration in the background. Finally it was Dan Tyte, author of Half Plus Seven, who read a magical short story about a night out in Cardiff.

The mic was again handed to the judges, who were endlessly impressed with both writers, cracking so fantastically wise about both authors, before making the night's second impossible choice, deciding to send Tyte on to the finals.

Then up stepped LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, who announced the night's finale: LDM Spelling Bee III — a game in which Zuniga had Mayhew and Tyte spell complicated names of world-famous authors. It was neck and neck along the way, but with a chance to steal victory, Tyte fell just short, winning Mayhew the LDM Edinburgh, Ep. 16 crown, winning her literary immortality to go with it.