An award-winning comedian has had her Edinburgh Fringe opening night thrown into chaos after thousands of pounds worth of musical instruments were lost by an airline.
Australian TV star and musician Michelle Brasier has been left scrambling to find instruments to perform hit show Reform, due to open at the Gilded Balloon venue on Wednesday.
Michelle, 32, who has appeared in TV sketch shows and voices characters in adult animated comedy series Koala Man alongside Hugh Jackman and Succession star Sarah Snook, is set to perform Reform along with her partner and on-stage musician Tim Lancaster and backing musician Jordan White.
They flew with Etihad from Australia then with KLM airlines from Amsterdam from Edinburgh, landing on Saturday without six bags containing their clothes and costumes as well as a guitar, trombone, guitar pedals, full electronic drum kit, computer and mixer worth thousands of pounds.
AirTags say the luggage has been at Edinburgh Airport for three days, but neither airport staff nor KLM Airlines have been unable to locate them.
Melbourne-based comedian, singer, writer and actor Michelle said: “A lovely man who worked at the airport tried to help us but he didn’t have the authority to go and get our bags for us.
“Our AirTags were showing the bags were 50 metres from us. We begged, ‘please just let us go grab them, they’re right there. We just wanna do our little show’. But he wasn’t allowed to, and wasn’t able to go and get anyone with more authority to help us.
“I absolutely understand that airport staff are overworked and stressed but our AirTags show our bags and instruments have been sitting there for three days now… KLM keeps telling us they will be delivered to us when they are found, but we’ve found them and they have been at the airport for three days.”
She added: “People have been so generous. Local musos have come out of the woodwork offering us help where they can.
“The spirit of the Fringe is so lovely.”
Tickets here
