And the answer was no, but I wish it had. The last two days in Edinburgh number among the best in my life so far, and as there are a fair few years under the belt now I count that as an achievement.
Thursday was a busy day. It was Natalie’s first full day in Edinburgh and we had a few shows booked. First was a stage production of the Sylvain Chomet film ‘Belleville Rendezvous’. It was a tricky task to translate such lush animation onto the stage but on the whole it was a great show. The use of puppets, music, props and a committed cast kept up the illusion nicely. There were some moments where it got a bit confusing but a knowledge of the film helped greatly. That aside, the energy levels of all concerned was remarkable and I would highly recommend it if you are free at 11am. The play was in the Bedlam theatre which is one of my favourite venues, it has a packed studenty feel and is never dull. And they do really good cakes at cheap prices.
We then caught Steve Pretty’s Perfect Mixtape at the underbelly on a 2 for 1 offer. I have mixed feelings about the show. As a musician I really admired Pretty’s taste, knowledge and musicianship. As a storyteller he was engaging and had a very good story to tell. There just seemed to be something missing, for a start it just wasn’t funny enough. Also, the sound levels weren’t right and it was hard to make out some of the dialogue. Has the potential to be a brilliant show and it may improve as the run continues. I hope so as I admired and enjoyed the elements of it. At one point he manages to get the entire audience to join in a song on kazoos which is brilliant; I struggle to get people just to put their hands up in my show. I would definitely see him again.
After a quick lunch in Hula’s we caught Hatty Ashdown’s show Nan Child. The previous show had overrun and I was a bit nervous as it was beginning to look like I might not have time to comfortably make my own show. We both really enjoyed this and it was a great example of the free fringe at it’s best; a small packed room, a perfectly formed show. Hatty was a natural with the audience and it was really good. It was 40 minutes long which seemed perfect for a first solo show as it didn’t flag at all and there were some nice touches with pre-prepared video and props.
Our show was very busy on Thursday and we had a great time. Phil, who I’d met at the launch party came and it was probably my best performance. The audience were really up for it and it all worked brilliantly. A quick drink with Phil was followed by Josie Long at the Pleasance Dome. Met up with Ali and Mike who had come up from Worthing. Josie was great. Funny, passionate, intelligent and at ease with herself and the audience. We then had a quick drink with Mike, Ali and Sam before pushing off to find some more comedy. We ended up catching AAA late at the Pleasance Court Yard. It was an odd show, not due to the performers but the group of fifteen or so twats who had obviously been having a drink your own weight competition and were spread out amongst the audience. The compere, Jonathan Elston, did brilliantly to hold it together in front of some the most disruptive and mean spirited heckling I’ve encountered at the Fringe. Highlight of the show was Danny Ward. It took a few minutes for it to really get going which was either him finding his way or the audience getting on his wavelength but either way, once it clicked it was brilliant. Some of the best prop gags I’ve seen and his timing was perfect.
Taxi home and a pot noodle in bed was the imperfect ending to a perfect day. A day that was not quite as perfect as Friday. It being the last day of the show Natalie and I had a wander through Edinburgh sight seeing and taking our time rather than cramming more shows in. We had lunch at Arcade which has become my favourite haunt during the festival. I just love the fact that they keep the whisky and the vodka on separate floors like the whole place might go up if the two things mix. We did a bit of shopping for presents and grabbed a milkshake in Hula’s. I said goodbye to Avalanche records, the one shop I would happily move wholesale to Brighton / Worthing / London or anywhere that I could easily get to on a regular basis.
And then the show. It looked like it was going to be our worst in terms of audience numbers but then a few things happened at once. The lady I had rented a room from arrived with a friend. The students who had told me downstairs they were too busy to come up decided that they had time after all and came up en-mass. Natalie and Alex both decided they wanted to see our last show and then to top all of that the comedians behind the show that both Sam and I would put at the top of our 2011 ed fringe picklist came in to the pub and went upstairs. I have already waxed lyrical about The Return of O’Farahan and Keith in an earlier blog so won’t do so again. Sam came rushing downstairs and said to me in a panicked tone ‘Have you seen who has just come in to the fucking show’ and I had to say ‘er, yes. That may be my fault’.
On Wednesday I was walking head bowed through the rain with Natalie when Jon Reed from the aforementioned show walked past us with a friend. I never normally do this but I had genuinely loved it and wanted to say so, so I ran back and stopped him and gushed incoherently for a minute or so. He politely asked for and took one of our flyers and I handed it over thinking that was charming of him and that’s a really nice anecdote for my blog. I never expected him to then turn up with his comedy partner and a friend and sit on the front row at our show.
It was a cracker. The audience really responded to us and we both gave our best performances. Jon and Kev laughed all the way through and had some genuinely nice and constructive things to say afterwards. Our last show could not have gone any better. It turned in to a long evening and we were all getting happily drunk together when Sam got a call with an offer of a slot at the Brighton Rocks gig. Jon, Kev and their friend Phil, Alex, Natalie and myself all went to support Sam in a difficult room. Despite the heat and a barely audible PA she absolutely stormed it. I felt happy and content. We said goodbye to Jon, Kev and Phil and then the four of us went on to the Voodoo Rooms for a cocktail served in a teapot. If the Mad hatter had been drinking that stuff then I totally understand how he got his name. Sensibly Natalie and I said goodbye to Alex and Sam and got a 2am taxi back as we had to clear our room by 10 am.
It was a happy couple of Salters who said goodbye to Edinburgh and headed back to London. The journey back was largely uneventful aside from the final moment of Edinburgh excess when we upgraded to first class. I sat and reminisced about all the things that have happened, all the moments of elation and doubt and was smiling away to myself like a madman in between bites of my complimentary Salmon sandwiches. Not really complimentary as I’d paid 25 quid to upgrade but that’s beside the point. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even the shit bits like Tuesday’s terrible show and the perpetual backdrop of rain. Even the bits I found really uncomfortable like listening to those morons heckling a 23 year old comic, handing complete strangers bits of paper advertising myself, addressing a Perrier award nominee as part of my audience or attending the launch party. This had always been the moment in my head where I thought I would walk away from comedy. That I could go to Edinburgh and then say that’s out of my system. I’ve never aspired to be a comedian and taking a show to the Fringe was never on my agenda. But it’s happened and it worked and I loved it. Walking away might not be that easy.
Well mainly rain to be honest. Haven’t posted since Monday so a few days to catch up on. I will try to keep this brief but a lot has happened and as the title of this post suggests it has been a bit of a mixed bag. I started writing this and it began to resemble the diary entry of a particularly angst ridden fifteen year old boy so I have spared you the long drawn out account and am resorting to a bullet point whistlestop overview of the highs and lows.
- Monday – Just eight in for the show which was disappointing but it was an okay show on the whole. Saw Alex Horne and Andrew O’Neill, both brilliant. Interestingly Andrew O’Neill was struggling to fill his venue which was a shame because his set is inventive and off the wall but consistently funny. There was one story arch that seemed to drag a little but there were so many laugh out loud moments that it is one of my top five shows. A good friend and colleague of mine arrived in Edinburgh and joined us for Andrew O’Neill and then we settled in the gilded balloon for what seemed like hours. And it was. It was a great night with everyone on good form and chatting away and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although standing outside MacDonald’s at 5am waiting for it to open is not something I am proud of. I caught the first train back to my room. This experience somewhat coloured . . .
- Tuesday – Went to bed at 7.02 am, woke at 9.44 am. I had set my alarm for 2.30pm to ensure I didn’t miss the show but my body clock does not allow for sleeping during the day so I showered and fed myself then went to Edinburgh to flyer. It wasn’t raining, the flyering went well and I arrived at the venue full of optimism and hope. I’m not quite sure what went wrong but it was the worst gig of the run. It started well, we had around twenty in and the pre-show chat with audience and getting people to come upstairs was great. Sam had struggled a bit as some of her best gags didn’t really stick and the laughter seemed polite rather than heartfelt but she delivered a consistent performance and did well given the almost constant distraction of what sound like workmen in the pub kitchen and a stream of women wanting to get to the toilet. My set started okay, I mentioned the riots as it had been preying on my mind a lot and although nervous beforehand about the reaction it went okay. It soon became apparent that my wordy, geeky jokes weren’t really sticking. It may be that the lack of sleep or the fact that I had good friends in the room affected me but I just didn’t come across well. The one bit of my set that I normally rely on to lift people back up played out to a virtual silence. I then went uneasily into my penultimate and best joke thinking well if they didn’t like the wordy, geeky stuff then this’ll be okay because it’s broader but just as I started on the setup, a couple in the front had a quiet but visible argument about whether to leave or not. Whilst working out how to deal with that I accidentally revealed the punchline to the joke before getting all the way through the set up. Disaster. To make matters worse there was a gentleman in the audience that both Sam and I were convinced was a reviewer. My friends never mentioned the show which is quite possibly the worst thing and I retired early for sleep and rest.
- Wednesday – Raining again. Moped about the house. Treated myself to a nice lunch with Liam and at last we spoke about the gig. He had enjoyed some of it so that was good. My wife, Natalie, was arriving in Edinburgh at four so went for a coffee near the station to wait and read the papers. Stumbled across an article in which Zoe Lyons talks about her top five loves and hates of the festival. Amongst the hates was ‘that one day’ wherein she described all the things that happened to me on Tuesday. That made me feel better. As did the exhibition at the Fruit Market gallery of Ingrid Calame’s beautifully abstract paintings. She traces the patterns left on floors from industrial spillages or the natural ravages of time and then overlays them to create these weirdly organic images that are both mundane and poetic. It was really nice not to be spoken to or at for a while and I really loved it. Natalie’s train arrived on time and we did the whole lover’s embrace on a train platform thing. No-one photographed it but it was lovely and timely and I was feeling positively human again. Had a good show, not the best but reasonable and I performed well. Big thanks to Alfie and Sam for making us one of their stops on the trip up from Brighton. The world is a lovely place. Taxi back to the room with Natalie afterwards and I made us both a lovely meal. Back on track.
Have decided to leave Thursday to a separate post as quite a lot happened, all of it positive, and I think the bullet pointing isn’t really working but I really can’t be arsed to go back through and edit this back into conventional paragraphs. I hope it’s dry wherever you are reading this. Ben.
Well, not just me as it turns out. I’ve been in Edinburgh for five days and I’m already starting to think the sun is a myth perputuated by the English government to entice the youth of Scotland to London. It has been incessant since Friday. It rained so hard and persistently on Saturday that I had to buy new shoes as my trainers still haven’t dried out and I realised that the other shoes I had bought had a massive hole in the bottom. The weird thing is though that no-one really seems to mind that much. Obviously there’s general tutting about the weather and queuing for shows isn’t fun but it doesn’t seem to have affected peole’s moods. They’re friendly, warm and sociable regardless of the weather.
Sam had a stormer on Saturday (in the comedy sense of a great show, not a tantrum) and I was really pleased for her as she had some friends up and it’s always difficult performing in front of people you know. She absolutely nailed it and I only hope I do the same tomorrow when my good friend (and line manager!) Liam comes with his friends. Performing comedy is difficult for the people who know you. You say things on stage that you wouldn’t say in normal life. It’s you, but it’s a slightly exageratted version of you. Some comics foreground a particular aspect of their personality that isn’t normally on show or not to the same degree at any rate. This can make it difficult for those who know you well.
In fact we both had a great one on Saturday although I was aided and abetted by the gods of comedy in one of those moments you couldn’t script any better. I was telling an anecdote about my journey to Edinburgh which featured and older lady called Edith (may have mentioned this in an earlier blog) and with perfect timing the door to the room opened and a little old lady walked in to go to the toilet. I introduced her to the audience as Edith and joked with her a little bit and it got the best response of the night. She even got a clap when she left. You can’t plan for things like that, you just have to hope you are able to take full advantage when they come along. And that’s the lovely thing about doing this run of shows; because I am doing it every day my timing and reflexes are developing and getting much quicker. For some reason the audiences seem to want join in with my show so I’ll be building up to a line and someone will just add one of their own. Before it would have put me off but now I’m relaxing and learning to go with it and judge when to use what they have said and when to take control back and enforce my own structure. The other positive is that they are joining because I’ve relaxed them and made them feel part of it and they are recognising and relating to what I am saying.
We had a lovely post gig drink with Sam’s friends and the night flew by. They were both really lovely people who had spent time working with children in deprived areas of the world and had beautiful, heartbreaking and funny stories to tell. I love the fact that you can never judge a person by what they look like or what they do for a living. As I’m getting older I am beginning to the realise that stuff is almost incidental to who they are. The night flew so fast that I missed the last train home and ended up on a horrific night bus mission. I am staying in a place called Brunsatne but it’s not mentioned on the bus route so I went to what I thought was the right bus stop and asked the driver. He couldn’t make out what I was saying due to my accent but in the end I thought we had got there and he told me I was on the wrong side of the road and needed to go the other way. This happened three times and I kept getting sent to other bus stops. In the end I wrote down the name of the place and got the right bus. And yes, the first bus I had tried was the right one.
Sunday started slowly as I was slightly hungover from the Whisky tasting I had foolishly embarked on the night before. Bought some horrific shoes from Asda as it was the only place nearby. Then met up with Sam, the intention being to do some flyering but we were both a little sore and it was obviously still raining so we caught some shows instead. We paid £3 to see what turned out to be quite a poor new act line up. One of the comedians stood out but it was like any other free night in a small town really and wasn’t anywhere near as good as the free show we’d seen on Saturday – It’s two O’clock live at two o’clock, which featured three standups who were all good but the pick of the bunch was Staurt Laws who picked on me relentlessly and generally just riffed off the audience for 20 minutes. But the highlight of the festival for me so far is ‘The return of O’Farahan and Keith’. Not easy to explain but essentially comedians Jon Reed and Kevin Dawson have made a film using clips from Starsky and Hutch but have removed the dialogue which they then perform either live or using pre-recordings. Jo caulfield and Jonny Vegas are some of the people providing the voiceovers. It is absurd, slightly deranged stuff but when it works it is absolutely brillant. I was laughing so much at some of the stuff spoken over Huggy Bears parts that Sam had to nudge me. It divided audience as nearly half left before the end but for me it was brilliant edgy and risky but most importantly funny.
The only downside to the show was that it finished half an hour before ours so we had to dash over and my mind was full of that stuff still. Another good turn out of twenty audience members and we both did well. I’ve dropped a couple of things from my set and the replacement bits did okay but need tightening up. Will keep the same set today and see if it all gels well. After the show I went to an open mic and made people feel miserable with some of my non-comedy songs. Then I met up with Sam and Alex and we went to a Poetry Slam which was great fun. We saw Luke Wright and a brilliant poet called Catherine whose surname I can’t remember and whose flyer I now can’t find. To be able to deliver words at that speed, eloquently and with humour and comic timing is a real skill. In awe of everyone who performed really. Sam and Alex stayed for Luke’s next show but I was flagging and couldn’t face another night bus mess so headed home.
Big thanks to Emily Crook who told her friends about us and they came to yesterday’s show. I think they enjoyed it. Also, thanks to Friday’s audience member who used my website to tell me they thought “the show was ace”. Made my day.
But more of that later.
It’s 6.32 am and no this is not the stream of consciousness ravings of a man who has been awake 24 hours living off coffee, lager and an adrenalin fuelled hedonistic surge of mid-life crisis. It’s my body clock; I can’t sleep past 6am regardless of what time I go to bed and last night was relatively early by Edinburgh standards. There’s a lot to catch up on really. We have had two shows since I last wrote, both of which had an audience which is by no means guaranteed. We have had double figures at both and if that continues through the run I will be a happy man. The problem is that there is so much going on that it’s almost impossible to stand out from the crowd. It’s a bit like being a pebble on Brighton beach and hoping that you’re the one the weekend tourist decides to pocket.
Those of you waiting on tenterhooks for the results of my party pooping exploits can rest assured that I got through the ordeal okay. Heartened by a hefty Edinburgher (Burger, bacon, cheese, haggis) I mingled as well as a slightly awkward man can. There were a couple of acts that I recognised from the circuit who I chatted to cordially, exchanging empty promises of attending each others shows. I bumped into Jorik Mol whose geeky, intelligent, slightly surreal on stage persona is not that far removed from his everyday self which makes him a great person to chat to. He knows a lot of people though and so I only managed to alleviate the rising sense of loneliness and being out of my depth for about ten minutes. I spent about fifteen minutes in a corner of the room watching as other people effused and hugged and generally gave the impression of being lifelong friends. The music was very much in the background so I managed to avoid unleashing the dance move (that’s a callback to the previous post). And then I found Phil, another man looking as though he had wittingly stumbled into his own worst nightmare and was internally chastising himself for his misplaced optimism. He is up doing a children’s show called Phil the Shepherd (which sounds slightly disturbing when said aloud) but has got good reviews. I bumped into him again yesterday and it is going really well, packing out as there aren’t that many free shows for kids in the festival. He seemed a genuinely nice guy and we chatted for quite a bit before being joined by a three weeks reviewer who seemed genuinely bemused by the fact that as a comedian I wasn’t bombastically self confidant and assured. She was very chatty though and gave me loads of good tips on shows to see.
We then moved into the show room for the performances which were essentially a cross-section of the kind of shows being performed at the free fringe. Five minutes per performer and it started well with a good stand up whose name I can’t remember then a Derren Brown style mind guy who did a good lottery trick. The problem was though that the room was jammed beyond seating capacity and unbelievably warm. I left an hour and ten minutes in owing to a combination of the heat, tiredness and the current performer effectively chastising the audience for not laughing at their spectacularly unfunny routine. If you need to explain why something is funny to a room full of comedians then there’s something wrong. That aside though, it was largely a nice night and there was a real sense of being part of something if you wanted to be. I however took the train home stopping off at the 24 hour Asda Superstore, my thoughts on which I will leave as I have a feeling there is an entire routine lurking somewhere on those seemingly endless shelves. Suffice it to say it was a suitably surreal ending to my first day in Edinburgh.
So, the shows themselves. The room is nice although I hadn’t realised that there wouldn’t be anyone round to tidy it up or ensure the equipment was working or on. Fortunately I know enough about the sound equipment to ensure it is working. Still we got that out of the way for the first one and were a lot more organised for the second. The room is a good size and can hold about seventy people although I think that would be uncomfortably full. The major issue is that the lady’s toilet for the pub is only accessible through our room so that can be a bit distracting. Particularly when they announce at the top of their voices ‘Don’t mind me I’m just sneaking into the toilet’ . Sam dealt with that beautifully.
We had thirteen in for the first show and eleven for the second which doesn’t sound a lot but from talking to the other performers on before and after us was actually quite good and to be honest they all sat together rather than spread out and it didn’t feel disappointing at all. As I said earlier if we stay in double figures through the run I’d take that. The shows have had a good energy about them, particularly the second one, and both seemed to go down well with the audience. I managed to offend one Scottish man by inadvertently referring to Edinburgh as being on mainland England. That went down well. Although to be fair it was an unintentionally implied reference rather than a stated one. More of an inference really. And I diffused the situation so international incident avoided. Unless York has been invaded whilst I’ve been living in my festival bubble, in which case my apologies to all involved and affected.
The audience numbers is a bit of a mystery for performers at our level. People aren’t coming to see us based on who we are as they have no way of getting that information. One appearance in a non comedy related feature on Meridian regional news is the extent of my broadcasting career and probably can’t be included in my comedy CV. Having interrogated, i mean asked, the audiences so far it is an almost utterly random combination of the time, the location, the title, the venue . We didn’t do much flyering on the first day as Sam arrived midday and needed to get settled and I am not good at forcing things into people’s hands. But we have hit on a magic formula that seemed to work very well on our first proper day of flyering. I am having to lug my guitar around as where I am staying is a bit too far out to nip back and pick it up just before each performance. The venue itself is almost completely open and I don’t want to leave it there. Sam was a bit late meeting up for flyering and I was having limited success with my falsely confident flyer thrusting approach so I got the guitar out and made up a song asking people to take flyers. It didn’t work particularly well on my own as I had the flyers on the floor in front of me and although people laughed or smiled as they went past they were reluctant to stop and bend down but I still shifted more than I had just handing them out. And I made 52p. But when you add Sam’s naturally confident thrusting to my stupid song the results were amazing. We had to get more flyers within twenty minutes of starting!
Sample flyer song lyric:
I only know these three chords, please take a flyer I’m getting bored / I’m doing a stand up comedy show, if you take a flyer I’ll shut up and go / Please someone take a flyer.
We went for a drink with a couple of audience members after our first show and that was great. The spiegeltent is just around the corner from our venue so we’ll be there for our post show wind down most days I would imagine. Sam’s landlady came to yesterdays show and she is unbelievably lovely. We had such a great time chatting that Sam and I missed Paul Foot as we were too late to get across town in time. We did manage to catch Andrew Lawrence the day before and I would highly recommend him. He has these really brilliantly scripted verbal rants that he delivers rapidly, the language and construction of which are almost breathtaking. The Paul Foot tickets were my present to Sam for inviting me up to Edinburgh so i am a bit gutted we missed it, but we had a great night anyway and that’s the spirit of Edinburgh really, you take whatever comes in your stride.
And before we start the spelling mistake is deliberate, it’s a reference but it doesn’t matter if you don’t get it. Brilliant, now I’m alienating people before I’ve even started.
I am in Edinburgh. Woohoo. Although technically I’ve only seen the station and my room in the sticks so far so don’t get too excited. It’s been a struggle but I’m finally here and trying to gear myself up for the Laughing Horse Launch Party tonight. I’m not big on parties but I know nobody here until Sam arrives tomorrow so thought it would be good to show my face. I’ll probably do my normal party trick and sit in the corner feeling sorry for myself, quietly getting drunk until I launch my dance moves on an unwitting public. That should be dance move rather than moves.
The last few days have been eventful. A landslide in Croydon meant I couldn’t get home on Monday. Yes, landslide , although technically speaking it would be better described as a ‘bit of mud’ or ’Mud on the tracks’ which sounds like a slightly shoddy glam rock band does an album of Dylan covers. Apologies. So not at home on Monday for packing meant mad rush last night. Still, got it all done and dusted and in bed at 11 ready for a 5am start. At least it should have been a 5am start. But I’d not set the alarm correctly and woke up 2 minutes after the train had left Worthing. Despite a valiant attempt to get to King’s Cross in time for my pre-booked seat via Brighton and London Bridge, I failed and ended up having to spend an extra £100 on a ticket. Just don’t tell my wife. Who’s probably reading this. Excellent.
I’d like to say the train journey itself was largely uneventful and it was. Until Edith, the wheelchair bound 93 year old , got on and engaged me in conversation. She was lovely, but very loud. This was fine as the conversation was fairly innocuous but charming as she asked if my DVD player was wireless and I explained at great length that it only played DVD’s until I realised she meant actual radio not internet ready. This was before she found out I was going to Edinburgh which she professed to love mainly it turns out because she had lots of sex there back in the forties. Quite a girl Edith as I and the rest of the carraige discovered. Her Grandson didn’t say much but he did go a lovely shade of fuscia. The journey into Carry on farce was complete when I went to the toilet and accidentally opened the door on a young woman who screamed hysterically and threw toilet roll at me in panic. Suffice it to say I put my headphones on and pretended to sleep the rest of the way in. Why do comedians need to be inventive when everyday life is just ridiculously stupid.
I managed to watch Casablanca followed by Dog Day Afternoon on the journey. Both great films although you don’t need me to tell you that. Oh yeah if you like movies you should see Citizen Kane, Yes Ben, we know. Dog Day Afternoon plays like a sleazy Woody Allen film. I hadn’t remembered it being that funny. It’s just full of brilliant one liners. You could imagine Woody just shrugging his shoulders with the Pacino lines where he founds out the security guard is an asthmatic. ‘ Asthma, sheesh.’
The room I’m letting for the stay is lovely. Airy and big in a house overlooking a nature walk. Currently sitting in the beach hut at the bottom of the garden enjoying the sun. Nice countryside and a gentle walk to the coast lie outside the door. And it’s just 5 minutes into Edinburgh on the train. I’m looking forward to exploring tomorrow. Still must dash, I have a party to poop.
Hello.
That’s a good place to start. Although as no-one else has subscribed to this brand new, mint out of the box blog at the moment of writing it seems somewhat redundant. Although if someone does read this then the redundancy is in itself redundant. Maybe I should have started somewhere else.
I am going to Edinburgh to perform in the festival next week and I was going to write a diary or journal of the trip to chronicle the unbridled success of my first ever Edinburgh show or to serve as a warning to myself not to waste my money next time. Writing in a diary seems almost Victorian these days (which makes it appealing to me) but I’m rubbish at keeping hold of pens so a blog seemed a sensible option although, as I’m now finding, it’s a bit like talking to yourself whilst drunk. I keep restarting the same sentence desperately trying to make it coherent even though I’m not convinced that anyone is actually listening. Anyway enough whinging. I shall assume there is an audience and sally forth.
I say my Edinburgh show but really that should read ours. I’m going up with a great comedian called Sam Savage who really can claim most of the credit for this little jaunt. To be honest it would never have occurred to me to go without Sam’s invitation. But it makes perfect sense really. At the moment I do an average of 1 gig a week owing to work / home commitments so the nine night run we’re about to embark on is the equivalent of 2 months worth of normal gigs condensed into a very small time period. In addition to that I’m getting 30 minutes of stage time per night which is much more than you get on an average comedy night where as many comedians as possible are packed into the bill. Most comedians start by trying to get a nice tight 5 minute set then gradually build it up but my first three gigs were 20 – 25 minute slots so I’m much more comfortable with the prolonged set. In fact I really struggle with 5 minutes. Getting better at it now but at first it was hard to fit my rambly almost shambolic routines into that format.
I’ve probably given far too much away but this is meant to be an introduction to the blog and I had no clear idea of what I wanted to write other than to see if I was comfortable doing it. So back to Sam. What is weird is that we decided on doing the show before we’d become friends and in my case before I’d even seen Sam perform. Thankfully she was as good as I thought she would be. I think our styles have similarities but our delivery is very different. Sam is slightly more confident than I am on stage and much quicker to the punchline. Off stage neither of us can get a word in edgeways. My god, that girl can chat (she would say the exact same about me I’m sure).
Part of the reason I agreed to go is that I am having a year of saying yes to things. A bit like Danny Wallace but without the cool haircut or vested book writing interest. Really, it was just a conscious decision to see where life took me a little bit. Classic mid thirties crises stuff really. It has taken me to some unexpected places. In the last year I have started stand up, run the London Marathon, fronted a one night only Dr feelgood tribute act and now Edinburgh. It’s a good job I don’t bump into many drug dealers.
So what am I looking forward to?
- The city itself. This might sound sad but just after I committed to going up I saw the animated film The Illusionist by Sylvain Chomet (he also directed Belleville Rendezvous). It’s kind of a love poem to both Jacques Tati and to Edinburgh. Although it is an animated film it just made me want to go to Edinbrugh as soon as I could. I was also a big Robert Louis Stevenson fan as a kid. And yes, I have read a few of the Rebus books.
- Wall to wall gigs. If you’ve not seen the official Fringe brochure you wouldn’t believe how thick it is. So far I’ve booked tickets for Alex Horne, Andrew O’neill, Andrew Lawrence and Josie Long. On the not yet got tickets list are a stage version of Belleville Rendezvous, John Peel’s Shed by John Osborne and lots more. Some great stuff for free too. Ivor Dembina, Jonny Fluffypunk, Robin Ince. The list is almost literally endless.
- And last but not least, the journey up. I have got a 6 hours train ride to look forward to. And I am looking forward to it. Immensely. I am taking books, headphones, dvd’s, newspapers and a packet of wine gums. Don’t even think about talking to me!
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