Bike is just the ticket for Jimmy Chisholm’s mad dash between two shows

TRAMWORKS, diversions, crowded streets. No-one goes anywhere quickly in Edinburgh at the best of times, let alone during the Festival, so you can imagine Jimmy Chisholm’s dilemma when he was offered starring roles in two Fringe productions at opposite sides of the city.

The dilemma worsened when the actor realised he had just 35 minutes from curtain down in the New Town to curtain up in the Old Town. Luckily, Jimmy, a keen biker, had a solution to the problem with the help of his Suzuki 800 Intruder.

The 55-year-old, who starred in Take The High Road and alongside Mel Gibson in Braveheart, says: “I call it my mid-life crisis 800. I bought her in 2006 and she’s still going strong.”

He adds: “Curtain down on Appointment with the Wickerman at the Assembly Rooms is 4.40pm, then I have to get the Gilded Balloon where the curtain rises on Casablanca at 5.15pm.”

He also has to get out of one costume and into another in that time. “I couldn’t do it in a car. I’d be sat in traffic for an hour,” he says.

The downside, however, is the weather. “Half the time I’ve been going on in Casablanca absolutely soaking from driving in the rain. I’ve not been late yet but all it will take is one hiccup – a procession going up The Mound or something and that’ll be that.”

Appointment with the Wickerman, Assembly Rooms, George Street, 3.10pm/Casablanca, Gilded Balloon, 4.40pm,