The Luck and Charm...

I've never felt nearly as content with my performance as I was after today's gig. It's a relief to know that even if I never feel like I've done myself justice in any subsequent show the fact that I pulled one off that I would be happy to perform in front of a critic or anyone else for that matter.

The sense of the Edinburgh Fringe festival as a meat market never seemed more apparent today when I visited the normally tranquil noon-time Fringe Central – usually populated by a dozen or more quiet souls welcoming the start of another day on the hard slog to get people to see their hard graft come to life. Today, though, was the media event day. Representatives from most major outlets that cover the festival were on-hand for performers to inform them of their show and why they should give them coverage or even review for their publication.

The plan had been to arrive at the location when it opened at ten, take the opportunity to type and print up a little contact directory to staple to each flyer I handed over the various reps giving them my details in the hopes that they would get in touch further down the line.

One truncated bus journey into town, one sheepish return to the campsite to get my laptop charger and a subsequent frustrating seemingly-even-longer-than-usual second bus trip all the way I finally reached my point of destination an hour late. After frantically typing up my contact sheet details along with addressing other pressing matters online (such as finishing the previous day’s diary) I was close to ready to finish up and get the work printed – when I was asked to immediately leave so that they could set up the venue for the gathering in half an hour’s time. I was aware the event was drawing close – the fact that Russell Kane was about three feet in front of me at one point doing a piece to camera for something I assume will end up on The Culture Show or something else on television that normal people are getting to enjoy right now (never thought I’d envy that as much as I do) was an indication I needed to get a move on, but the sudden ejection certainly threw a spanner into the works. Not a literal spanner, of course. I mean, if I had a spanner thrown at me I’d certainly leave quicker but it would also lead to a sense that Fringe Central may not be the hospitable place for participants they bill it as in the brochure.

Stepping outside the queue had clearly begun quite a while earlier – I don’t believe I missed it at the time I entered earlier but I am nothing if not solipsistic to a level of complete blindness and deafness to everything that surrounds me. I’m typing this blog next to someone that looks like they may be a corpse, or at the very least one prone to long gaps between breaths. I haven’t really bothered to look, though, to tell the truth.

Standing in the queue was annoying – I doubt anyone enjoys a good queue. I’ve done my pre-requisite two-minute pondering of an amusing twist on the idea and I’ve certainly drawn a blank. Really this is just dead text now. I’m amazed anyone is still reading this. I stopped at the word ‘solipsistic’. The time spent in the company of strangers is never helped when the loudest strangers also seem to be the biggest tossers. That may be harsh on the people directly behind – it’s downright insensitive really since the woman of the pair handed me her pad of paper so that I could scribble a pathetically amateurish handwritten equivalent of the well-presented and organised calling cards I’d spent the past few minutes almost finishing. The problem was the theatricalness (Microsoft Word says that doesn’t count as a word – but neither does ‘tossers’ to them so what do they know?)) of them. They were the sort of people that have no shame walking up and down the Royal Mile shoving flyers in people’s faces. If anything, you get the sense that they quite enjoy this part of the festival. They are also the reason I hate the notion of flyering and would seriously consider paying a teenager to walk around and do it for me if the oftentimes crippling fear overwhelms me again. Their big selling point – and everyone on the Royal Mile seems to need a selling point – is that they run around all day in their underpants with no trousers, skirts or any other traditionally expected apparel for the lower part of your body. They had shoes on, of course. They weren’t idiots. The pants and the shirts both had the show details on them. It counts as one of the few times in life I’ve been explicitly and actively encouraged to stare at a woman’s bottom for an extended period of time and if she caught you staring she would hope you would continue until every piece of information it holds can be stored in your memory banks. Yet because of that I felt I couldn’t look at her even more than I do any woman with an impressive pair of buttock cheeks. Like it was some perverse double negative making me perverse in a completely new way never before imaginable. They spent the time waiting in the queue discussing the compliments – at least as they perceived them – that they were being offered for the bravery in their wardrobe choices whilst feigning incredulity and surprise that such a thought would ever enter anyone’s mind who encountered them on walkabouts. They then proceeded to make sure to do animated stretches whenever a passing camera came – be it from a news organisation or just someone just walking past. It’s that level of attention grabbing that again puts me off the performance aspect of the arts. Those two really have the correct approach to the festival, and their determination to have as many people see their show by any means necessary means they’ll probably get that ambition achieved. I can’t remember the name of the show but I know from their rehearsed speeches they planned to give the journalists that it was an improv show where one audience member says one word and they have to make up a play based on that word. The fact that the technicians and lighting team are also a factor and play a part in the improvisation certainly suggests the idea might be interesting to watch if just from a Theatre Studies practical experiment way of thinking; the only thing that’s putting me off even considering seeing the show whilst I’m in Edinburgh is the fact that it’s another bloody improv show.

Whilst I’m still a bit disappointed that nothing could be rustled up with WOW Impro members to come to Edinburgh with this year it seems that improv might be coming a bit too overexposed at Edinburgh. At the very least describing your show as simply ‘improv’ might be the wrong way to go since the nature of an improvised show is by definition an unknown quantity. It also can sometimes give the impression that your show is such because you can’t be arsed to write and think up something with depth and organised lighting and positioning. Those thoughts were definitely running through my mind as the two behind me kept prattling on in their pre-rehearsed spiel that they put on a new play every day – why not put on the same play every day and just make sure that it’s a good one?

I think the way to go with a show where you want to play with improvisation would be to follow the lead of the ‘How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse’ guys where defined characters and a clear structure are known by the players at the start of the show and they weave the audience suggestions and repartee into the show so if all else fails they have tried and true lines and setups to fall back on to keep the show going on a straight trajectory.

I found the media event – like many aspects of the Fringe – a bit overwhelming. The weaknesses of being so entirely self-reliant are made clearer and clearer to me with each passing day. Having responsibilities and control forced upon you can be a useful and hard lesson but as the heat in the room increased with more and more hot air and competing egos I quickly decided that my strategy was to hit only a few publications and not stress out about going for everyone and specifically the heavy hitters.

Everyone wanted to get to the Scotsman. There was only one journalist until about three o’clock so the queue moved slowly and became so lengthy so quickly that the queue was soon “closed”. This didn’t stop people continuing to queue and I wasn’t sure whether they were queuing for the right to queue or something else entirely. I didn’t bother to find out and instead looked to the minor, but still at times influential, online review sites who gave reviews to comedy since some were theatre driven. I got to chat with ThreeWeeks, Hairline and Broadway Baby. Again, just the idea of the show seemed to intrigue people and I left each one of them thinking there was more than a decent chance a review can come from each site over the next couple of weeks. If these reviews are positive it can build a word-of-mouth that could lead to a Scotsman or other larger scale publication to give my show a look in to see if it stands up to a perhaps more stern test of critical observation.

Of course just as important as a recommendation from a faceless journo is the recommendation of the regular festival-goers. If they engage others or are merely overheard in a pub by passers-by enthusing about your show I think that can sometimes lead to just as much if not more interest as critics at times can be seen as too myopic in set in their ways over what a comedy show should be and if any show deviates from their own ideals they will never give it their full support even if it makes them laugh despite themselves. The critics in the mainstream always seem to be reviewing their own status as a special person who understands the zeitgeist – Stewart Lee’s amusement that his show has not really changed in the last ten years but one ringing endorsement from the then still hip Ricky Gervais was what it took many tipsters to jump on the bandwagon and suddenly declare him the genius they always really knew he was all these years. I think the best example I can think of is Q magazine giving Oasis’ Be Here Now five stars – they were essentially reviewing the band’s status and cultural dominance instead of the actual cocaine-fuelled indulgent pointless go-nowhere songs.

I’m pretty sure the word-of-mouth will be very strong for the last show. It was easily the best I’ve ever done as a stand-up. Most of the jokes hit, the audience – though small in size – were supportive throughout. I don’t know what it was that made this show work and the others before not. Maybe it is entirely down to the audience. Maybe three days straight of doing the show means I have a better idea where the jokes are and how to structure the show. This time instead of going under I had to speed my way through the end to get the show to end on time. The haul at the end and the positive reaction from the people in the audience – including a lovely couple who happened to live just down the road from me back in Birmingham – left me buzzing on a high I hadn’t felt before from performing. The endorphin rush or whatever it was that caused it kept up for the next hour or so. It was apparent to me and to Simon and Tom when I met them later that I’d put my whole body into the work as I looked a state. I was drenched in sweat, exhausted and hungry. Like you feel after a good work-out (yes I do know what that can feel like). After the show I chatted to the Birmingham couple and a couple of Scottish locals that had come. I was very self-aware that part of me felt like I was still running the show – asking questions and basking in the glory. I knew I needed to leave as quickly as possible to let myself cool down but also to not blow my ego up so big it would lead to an inevitable puncturing. Still, I’m riding on a high now and I can only hope that it can carry on for as long as the festival runs. Even if it doesn’t, even if this is the only show I’m proud of at the end of the run, even if I leave Edinburgh with my confidence shattered and a new phobia or stage-fright that may stop me pursuing this road in the future the fact that I know that at least once I did something I was a passionate about from the other side of the audience-performer divide I can go on with a new success under my belt.

It just remains to see if that was the first and last time this happened…

There is hope...

So, waking up later than hoped and leaving much later than acceptable I came into Edinburgh determined to start my flyering in full force. I think the biggest problem with doing the free fringe solo is that as the sole person responsible for your show's publicity I essentially have to work on a 9-to-5 clock of work, work, work. It's self-imposed management but even if you are just walking around aimlessly handing out flyers you end up physically spent. Then after all that you have to go onstage appearing to be full of boundless energy and keep a group of strangers entertained for an hour.

Today was a good day.

The flyering was a faltering experience. I spent the first hour standing outside my venue handing out flyers to passers-by. The problem became apparent that because of the location of the venue being outside of that key Royal Mile/Pleasance/Gilded Balloon area where the Fringe is really concentrated and those that are spending a day wandering around aimlessly are more likely to wander. Taking a saunter towards the outskirts of the city will result in larger gaps between venues. The Edinburgh City Football Club is just enough away from Princes Street that it can feel removed. As a result I felt like for the most part I was handing flyers out to locals who don't particularly care for the festival but took a flyer out of courtesy and also because it wasn't a more annoying experience of being bombarded on the Royal Mile.

Am I being overly pessimistic? Perhaps. I must admit I made targeted demographic decisions in who I offered flyers to - basically anyone between eighteen and forty and predominantly men. These are the people most likely to have watched WWF/WWE at some point in their life. That's not to say these will be the only ones to go. I think the 'Smart' aspect of the show, the beret & pipe/cap & gown images should emphasise that whilst this might be an esoteric subject the gleeful mickey-taking suggests its inclusive to those who fear all the jokes will be obscure.

Anyway, after working my venue I ventured up and took a walk around the Royal Mile but side-stepping the main road into side roads. The plan was concocted with Mary to divide and conquer - visit every Laughing Horse venue with a pile of each others flyers and have them predominantly placed so that those who are taking a punt on one free show will obviously be receptive to being offered some more. I was able to do a couple but the plan fell through after Mary had to dash back to the venue to for her first performance after the unfortunate surprise of yesterday.

Also met Chris Matthewman whose show 'I Can Make Your Life Slightly Better' is running before Mary's. We're the only three shows at the venue to run all the way through the festival and so our triple-bill nature could be a great selling point. You can spend an afternoon seeing three very different shows, all for free and all without moving from the venue. The drinks are apparently the cheapest in Edinburgh so the quarter-hour between each is also the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this private club briefly opening its doors and making their discounted prices briefly available to others.

Wandering through Edinburgh towards the final destination of my venue I turned on to York Place to encounter Stewart Lee standing outside about to call someone. this seemed to great an opportunity to miss and I slowed my walk down, ready to take out my already half-read copy of his new book and request his signature. Unfrotunately my nervous worry of angering someone by bothering them when they're on, about to go on or just finished being on the phone led to me instead awkwardly trying to move around him waiting for a moment to greet him in a receptive mood. Instead, each time he ended one call and I tried to walk towards him he was soon on another. Fearing the worst that I'd been in his peripheral vision for most or all of the time I decided to cut my losses and live to get his autograph another day. Also my body felt like it was in a state and I desperately had to eat any type of fruit to get my energy up without resorting to soft drinks or chocolate. I decided on an apple, I'm sure you were desperate to know.

The show itself saw a 600% increase - or thereabouts - of attendees. Again, given the free nature of the Fringe and my decision to keep the door open throughout a few people wandered out, but more wandered in so it ended up an overall increase from the start of the show to the end - instead of the breaking even of yesterday.

The show was still not perfect but the increased audience and litle keyword setlist I stuck on the wall to remind of bits I'd left out yesterday allowed me to make a show I could tell was noticeably better. I also had to work very hard to keep the audience under control. After my show I saw Seymour Mace (best known for his part in Johnny Vegas' sitcom Ideal) in a venue with a couple fewer people but because of the simple spotlighting of the stage and the audience being in darkness there was very little uninvited interaction with the audience.

It's obvious now from the past two shows that because my show is essentially in a room with light coming from the window and bathing us all in equal amount members of the audience perceive themselves to be a more key part of the show. Two particularly vocal wrestilng fans, though passionate and fun to engage with at times, were hard to reign in when I needed undivided attention. They would talk over routines, mutter to each other if they recognise a reference or even anticipate particular jokes or punchlines. At one point there was even an almost heated debate about The Big Boss Man but I was able to move on from there quickly enough that it didn't entirely kill the momentum.

Again key routines were forgotten and I really need to get a grip on this within the next two or three shows because I don't want to have to use any sort of setlist by the end of Sunday and I fear that if a critic were to arrive before then it would gravely effect the level of recommendation they offer the show in their subsequent review.

On the other hand, though, its good to know that I kept a decent-sized audience entertained throughout without even using all my top material. The show again finished early, and that is something I need to get right.

After that it was Seymour Mace followed by Richard Herring - my first two shows at the Fringe. Mace was fine but most encouraging was I felt that - without meaning this to sound arrogant - my best routines were an equal to a lot of what Mace performed and since he's able to make a living as a standup that would suggest that it's not as unattainable a goal as I may sometimes fear. Herring was as much fun as he always ben. This is the fourth time I've seen him live and his intelligence, daring and great choices in subject matter made the hour fly by - although it didn't help the extended half-hour wait for his show to start, which is to be expected really since he wasn't performing at that point. Because we were in the queue. I'm not quite sure what my point was there.

So, let's see if a Saturday show will cause another spike in audience figures. Having my flatmate Simon and his brother Thomas arrive means I'll actually be compelled able to see some shows. I feel that after they leave that may not happen again. Which is sad. But I guess that';s what happens when you make the step over. I just hope it's not followed by another step back...

Does this make me a veteran?

Today was the day of my first ever performance as a part of the Edinburgh Fringe festival with my debut one-man show Confessions of a 'Smart' Wrestling Fan. It was attended by two people, saw three walk-outs and was over around seven minutes earlier than it should have.

But before that unimportant stuff I thought I'd mention two things that happened yesterday that I'd forgotten to mention in the previous day's blog:

1) The foreign father smashing ping pong balls towards his son's head saw me using the internet on my laptop and asked if the campsite offered "free wiffy". I know I love Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson and all the others but I guess my inner Stan Boardman got the better of me and I had a good private chuckle.

2) I was almost steamrolled over by a young sprinter desperately trying to evade the police. It completely took my surprise and I never really had time to consider I could have been knocked over, or worse become part of a nervous hostage situation. I think I would have been relieved of some of that fear by the look of steely-eyed determination on the police officer running after him. His teeth were gritted to the point that fragments may have been scattering behind him on the ground as he ran. You could tell in his head the Starsky & Hutch theme tune was blasting at full speed, full volume. The menacing wielding of his baton brought the chase to a finish and I continued on my way, needing twenty four hours reflection to really comprehend what I'd witnessed.

So, what happened today? I made the final internal alterations in my tent to the point I had places to put my used clothes, my collected flyers and all other necessities which will hopefully make everything easier there from now on. Two very good days and nights of weather means the tent will not have been tested with heavy rainfall yet, but I'm sure that day will arise. The biggest problem with sleeping in a tent is the minutest of sounds seems to suggest evil sprites are surrounding your tent poking, prodding, scurrying around waiting for the final pounce. Rain makes things even worse. What seems like a monsoon ocurring outside turns out to be light rain that you wouldn't bother taking your umbrella out to shield yourself.

An early journey into town was what I required in order to fit my planned healthy attitude towards exercise for the duration. Every morning, I decreed, I shall go into my local Banantyne's gym taking full advantage of my membership (which I really fail to do back in Birimingham) and swim a kilometere every day before facing whatever is presented with a refreshed and exercised body and mind.

This will be the last day I get to swim at Banantyne's gym.

Apparently Banantyne's gym in Edinburgh charges their members an extra £4 a month than the Birmingham gym. No problem, I reasoned, the extra £4 can be paid off at the counter and I can continue to go on my very way. 'Not so fast' the lady at the counter cried (not literally unfortunately I've yet to live the dream of being spoken to like a 60s Batman TV series villain - for a start I can never find three tough guy goons to wear matching masks and lycra for my wrestling-themed acts of dastardly doing). I have to contact Birmingham Banatyne's and have them sort it out. Meanwhile I can swim there this one time. I also had to pay £1 extra because they don't automatically provide you with a towel on arrival like my local. Seems towel is a tougher fabric to find in Scotland and of much higher value. Towel's a fabric, right?

I just found out, though, that to get the upgrade to use Edinburgh I need to pay the extra £4 EVERY MONTH for the remaining eight month's I have on my contract. I would suggest Douglas Banantyne go forth and multiply, but a quick Wikipedia check shows he has already done so and quite often.

Unless I can find a local pool within decent distance of everything else I don't know what I'm going to manage for exercise now. People who know me will again point out this hasn't been a problem for me recently, but I'm going to Edinburgh on a quest for improvement - and I'd like it to show physically as well as mentally and spiritually when all is said and done. But if it hurts too much financially maybe I should just do pushups or something.

The harshest realisation about yesterday had been I might not be as much of a 'lone wolf' as I had originally romantically envisioned. (By the way, my romantic visions of wolves do not involve Tyler 'Biggest Head-to-Body-Size-Disparity-Ever' Lautner; my romantic carnival rider operator visions on the other hand...) Being in crowds of thousands but knowing you're essentially alone with only a tent and inflated mattress to call home at night wasn't a great feeling. The first tip I would now give anyone who wishes to go to Edinburgh is this - bring people. Be with people. Friends, strangers, whoever will join you on your daft journey. You will be shocked how desperate you'll be for company in an event that sees you amongst walking beside and around so many semingly like-minded people passionate about the arts.

So it was with great relief that I met up with Mary Lockwood. The only person who seems to be as equally daft and naive as to book herself for the whole run of the Fringe at the Edinburgh City Football club. We met up at Fringe Central just away from the Gilded Balloon and traded stories about what had got us here and what we want to get out of the experience.

Mary is a storyteller by trade - travelling the country telling stories to kids in schools or adults in pubs and other social gatherings. It seemed like a fantastic way to live from what I could see as a 9-to-5 office drone. One thing that we did have in common, though, was our mutual trepidation towards flyering people. Neither of us possess that immediate confidence to approach a stranger in the street and shove a piece of paper in their hands imploring them to realise that our show is the one only one you need to see at the festival. As we walked along the Royal Mile I admired the dexterity and tenacity she showed in avoiding every student wielding an A5 that locked her in her targets. I had at previous festivals made a resolve to accept every flyer handed to me - partly to help the person out but also to see just how many I could collect by the end (it easily numbered over a hundred or possibly two in less than a week).

We essentially spent the next few hours convincing ourselves that we didn't actually NEED to flyer. My programme image had already been met with praise, I pointed out, from random strangers. Surely I didn't even need to flyer to get at least a crowd I would define as decent pretty much every night. I could just as easily throw my leaflets in the bin and have done with them, saving me a lot of shoulder and back ache for the rest of August.

We traipsed up to the venue several times hoping to get access to set up our stuff and see maybe run a few plans on what the show will be like and how we should plan collect our audience contributions after the show had ended. We both had the plan of basing the next day's food budget on the previous day's take in the hopes of saving what remained in our balance to spend on drinks, shows and whatever else you need to live - swimming pool access, perhaps.

Unfortunately my show was the first one on that night which meant we'd probably only get in for sometime after four. That was particularly unfortunate for Mary as she had been under the impression that she would be on at four today. It even said so in the programme.

It soon became clear to me that I would need to flyer my ass off for the next three weeks as the time came for me to take stage and a total of one person had made the journey to see me on my opening night. Alongside Mary I was performing in front of an audience of two - but a very appreciative two. There were benefits to this - the show was no longer fresh in my mind due to the gap between the last preview and the fact that everything I'd been concentrating on for the past week or so was in preparation for the time spent in Edinbrugh and little to none about the actual act I was taking up to Edinburgh.

Around five or so minutes into the show some local regulars to the pub this venue when it is usuallt only a pub sauntered in to take some seats. They spent the next ten minutes or so making observations on top of my observations, talking over my mimes and generally trying to engage me in conversation. I know my show is categorised as "stand-up, talk" in the Edinburgh programme but the talk is meant to be one-way. This may sound snobbish and I don't mean it to be but those weren't the people I wanted to come to the show - they wanted to have a laugh when they came in but I knew very quickly that apart from a few more general rountines about staying healthy and so on this wasn't the humour they could relate with or want to hear. By the time I was discussing Freud and the id, ego and superego they knew this wasn't how they wanted to spend the next forty minutes and left the venue saying "is no' ferus, pal"

Marcus and Mary stuck it out, though, and I think they were rewarded with a show that was intermittently amusing and a lot less formal than I planned the show to be if it finds a larger audience. One thing that frustrated me, though, was talking to Marcus after it was clear he was exactly the kind of Fringe audience member I wanted to see my shows and me performing at my best. Marcus is someone who knows his arts, wants to encourage youngsters to try even if it results in failure and adores events such as the Fringe because these disparate people from around the country and the rest of the globe can congregate into one beautiful city for a month to share each others' thoughts and experiences and search for common ground. That I couldn't even remember my favourite material about politics and my masturbatory habits was annoying to look back in retrospect - remembering various fragments of the show I forgot throughout the rest of the day and kicking myself each time.

My show involves a projector and because I still can't remember all of the order in which the slides come I was having to back-track more than I could and because I was reacting to the slides instead of just having them be one feature of the entire act (I had always envisoned not even acknowledging the slides except for the interactive part of the show) but that night they were the defining feature and the show suffered as a result.

If you're reading this Marcus thank you so much for coming and I'm very sorry that you witnessed what I hope is the worst performance I have for the duration of this festival.

This may sound like a defeatist and demoralised diary entry and on the first proper day of the festival that surely can't be good news. That's not the case, though. I believe you learn by doing but you learn even more by doing wrong. I went back to the campsite earlier than intended to and sat in the games room going over the show in my head, clearing my thoughts and conversing with a German hiker who had come to Edinburgh to nto only experience the festival but the sights and sounds of the beautiful surrounding Highlands. It was a lovely way to end a topsy-turvy day - meeting three very interesting peple from different walks of life - and I think Marcus would agree that's what the Edinbrugh festival is really for...

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"I believe the ability to think is blessed. If you can think about a situation, you can deal with it. The big struggle is to keep your head clear enough to think."

- Richard Pryor

The question is - do you get going?...

This is going to be tough. I mean really tough. This wasn’t even a proper day of the Fringe and I was so exhausted by the end of it I ended up coming back to the campsite about two hours earlier than I had envisioned. I think a pattern, a daily routine, will have to be formulated in order for me to not slowly turn into a gibbering wreck.

The morning started with an early wakeup followed by a prison shower – I think the two things I’ll miss most during my visit (besides friends and fa- no, actually these ARE the two things I’ll miss the most) are my own bed and a regular shower in my own bathroom. Sure, we got so much gunk in the plughole that we had to empty a bottle of some sort of acid down there – twice – but there’s no hard floor, strangers awaiting your quick departure and a sense that you may be dirtier than when you actually went in there in the first place – even if that last part’s only the case back home through hubris and denial.

Taking the bus into town confirmed another thing I’ll have to do when I do the fringe again – get a place closer to the town centre. The bus journey from the campsite to the venue (the bus I take does quite fortunately stop very close to where my show is on) takes about 45 minutes. Given that I’ll have to take this trip most likely four times every day I will certainly find this very annoying very quickly. I find this very annoying. I also find very annoying the fact that whilst I am to take the 11 bus to the campsite it is only every OTHER 11 bus that goes there. This after the previous day I commended Edinburgh buses for having their buses numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. instead of the random seemingly American football inspired setup of Travel West Midlands bus numbers. What I would suggest, though, is if you have a bus route that does have alternates perhaps bringing in a lettering system instead of relying on people to read a small white board placed on the front of the bus driver’s window. Just saying. Or typing in this case.

Wandering around Edinburgh the day before the festival started was interested. There was a sense of excitement for some but dread for others. A trip to the bus station to get a pass for the month led me to meeting it face-to-face for the first time as a Scot so dour you’d think the man who came up with the clichéd description of her country kin may have met one of her ancestors. She made it clear that she hated the whole thing – the business on the buses, the traffic, getting hassled on her walk home and having English tossers forcing flyers into her hand. No, I didn’t then thrust a flyer in her hand. I hadn’t picked them up yet.

I found the participants centre, which I hope to use as often as possible if just to charge my laptop and get some free Wi-Fi without having to be in a McDonalds or Starbucks. There was a meet-and-greet for fellow one-person shows. Even then I was one of the few to actually be up there on my own, and especially going for the full three weeks. Everyone was handing out flyers afterwards and again I cursed myself for not having my own. Everyone seemed passionate and a few shows I genuinely wouldn’t mind seeing. One that sounds like fun is called ‘Crush’ where this woman got in touch with all the boys and men in her life that she had crushes on and finding out how they react to her confessing to her old unrequited affections. Another one that proved a unique was a show from a woman based in New York who works in computer games event promotions. The show involves a dozen or so people arriving at a venue and being given an MP3 player each to then listen to and follow the instructions they hear as they interpret them, essentially becoming performers in the piece. I told Gyta – the girl behind the show – that it was a fascinating idea but she’d probably need to be vigilant since handing over video MP3 players willy-nilly (that caused Atlantic divide confusion) might result in some scallywags making a dash for it with their hand-out. She explained that she’d already accounted for this and solved it by buying Zunes for the show – meaning not even the biggest idiot would consider stealing the thing.

Returning to the campsite to pick up my projector for the show I ventured into the games room to charge my laptop and iPod whilst browsing the net. A family came back and forth into the room. I could tell they were foreign, I suspected German but I really had no idea. They flicked on the TV and alternated between live Big Brother and music channels. Occasionally they played table tennis. The father eventually turned up and he and his son, who could have been no more than nine or ten, engaged in a game that the father clearly took very seriously. The ball would sometimes bounce over to me so I was always had a corner of my eye on events. More than once the father slammed the ball towards the table with such ferocity that it would seem a point was being proven and a scar from a previous day’s tussle – be it verbal or physical – was being avenged. I get the feeling that camping families have a dynamic like this. They believe themselves to be closer to the hunter-gatherers of Raquel Welch times and watch Bear Gryls programmes with a notepad and pen. I honestly would have been a crap gatherer let alone an atrocious hunter. I think if I were a cavemen I’d honestly have to hope that they had comic relief jester/village idiot figures even then to keep their spirits up after another difficult day battling mastodons and yetis or whatever it is they hunted in those days. I’d have spent the day fretting over a routine along the lines of “don’t you hate it when you hack into the bone marrow of a carcass and you keep getting bone and no marrow?” making sure that every “ug” is in the right place. Hopefully it’d be worth three cave inscriptions out of five with a generous audience’s help.

The venue is really all I could hope for in that it’s a venue in Edinburgh during August. The location isn’t as far out as I feared and I think there’s decent chance for passing punters to take a chance on a show. It’s located right next to an Italian food take-away which I’m sure those who know me will enjoy knowing. I doubt my space can hold the fifty-five it stated in the program, but when I came in there were tables around and I’m rubbish at estimating these sort of things. I can safely say if fifty-five people as well as myself were in there for an hour and the weather was as warm as it is today I will be able to cover my fear sweat with a convincing alibi. The only worry is where the projections can be made against since there wasn’t a white screen at the venue. There’s a black drape to allow a backstage or sorts but it looks like it would billow too much. I could perhaps remove the drape and use the wall or duct tape the bottom part of the drape to the floor so that I can keep it as flat as possible. These are things that will hopefully be solved by the end of the first few gigs.

I picked up a large handful of flyers from the venue and stuffed them into my bag. Here’s where the source of the exhaustion probably came in retrospect. You wouldn’t think it but carrying around nine hundred A6 flyers along with a few other bits and bobs in your bag becomes quite a heavy proposition over time. Especially when that time is usually spent walking to destinations you realise you should know better by now since you’ve been walked there at least a dozen times. So, after walking from Princes street searching for George Street only to give up, walk back to Princes Street over the North Bridge to the Royal Mile in order to pick up a Fringe catalogue with a map to show just how idiotic I was for not spotting that George Street runs parallel with Princes Street walking back over the North Bridge back over Princes Street down one end of George Street to another just to pick up a Stewart Lee book that I could have easily bought from the Princes Street bookstore tomorrow if I’d shown a little bloody patience I trudged on to a pub where I quietly sorted out my flyers into bunches of two hundred and fifty whilst surreptitiously topping up my glass of still water with two bottles I’d bought earlier and still had in my bag. Yes, I am quite the bad-ass.

Took my first tentative steps towards handing out flyers and didn’t feel quite as shame-faced as I expected. I think the fact that I was approaching people with a slightly apologetic voice at the realisation I was probably wasting their time but was also taking the time to talk to them instead of wordlessly stick my hand out to anyone that passes meant they were a bit more willing to take in what my show was actually about than they may have been if they may have normally bothered. I have the feeling that out of the twenty or so people that I handed flyers to there were four that may come given their response. A 20% positive response would be remarkable and would guarantee a full house every day. The strange thing is, though, that I think the show may get an audience just based on the description and picture in the programme. On three occasions already people reacted after hearing the title of my show by noting they were already aware of it – two of them literally saying “It jumped out of the page”. As I’ve noted before to other people that never asked but I decided to talk to about my show anyway, I think the best blessing I could have had was this year’s programme including an image for each show. In previous programmes it was a mere show description – to get a picture you had to pay a fee. You still do to get an ad that is still much bigger than the show entries but images will always draw the eye first whenever you read a magazine or other type of glossy. Since I’m in no way a star and didn’t even put my name on the show’s title in order to save two words for the blurb I could instead use the picture not as a vanity shot like I’m in Spotlight but as a visual gag that best encapsulates the show – which was wearing a Mexican wrestling Luchadore mask whilst smoking a pipe and wearing a beret. That and the subject matter draws your attention. I know that it’s a show I’d go to as a punter and I hope that there might be a fair few like-minded people out in Edinburgh this year. I’ll find out soon enough.

I walked back up the North Bridge to Espionage just off the high street believing there to be a gathering of Laughing Horse participants to toast the start of the fest. That was my understanding but I guess I must have understood wrong since no one else was there. I was more than slightly relieved and made my last heavy-footed stumble to the buses and devoured as much of Mr. Lee’s book as I could before getting off and coming back to make this blog entry.

Lee has the precision of a surgeon. He strings out every single routine to its fullest potential – looking at it from all available angles to see if he can wring some more comedy out of it, not because he has a paucity of material but because he can surprise his audience with even more observation and thought on a subject matter he considered to be interesting. He had to consider it interesting otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered telling other people about it on stage. I suppose that’s why I knew I could do a comedy show about wrestling even with my limited comedy experience because it was compensated for by my extensive knowledge of wrestling. It’s the balancing act that has been the most difficult. It remains to be seen if it will be deemed a success.

Tomorrow: a full day of flyering and my debut Edinburgh performance. Stay tuned . . . for ‘Fighting the Frizzies’ at eleven.

Where it all begins. Again. (in 2011)...

Okay, so the plan is to keep a daily online journal to chronicle my first adventures as a performer at the biggest arts festival in the world. Usually I’m too lazy to keep these things up, but poverty and lack of nearby friends would suggest this might not be the case this time. I’ll try my best and we’ll see what happens – which is the same that can be said for my show.

I have this cocktail of emotion coursing through me of fear and excitement, frightful trepidation and eager anticipation. You’d think the opposite feelings would lead to an external appearance of emotional neutrality similar to that of the Evesham audience at one of my previews but you would be wrong. The unknown is what powers me but it will soon become a reality. The search then starts for a new source of energy to keep my spirits up and running. In just over twenty four hours of writing this I’ll be onstage and reciting my routine to an audience entirely made of strangers.

The journey up was fairly uneventful. The weather was as erratic as you’d expect venturing to Scotland in the summer. A couple of funny coincidences made an appearance that others might take as signs – not my own cynical self, of course – Pulp’s Common People came on the radio which was what led me to buy the album Different Class when I was twelve and informs a routine on the show. Even funnier a car driving in front of us on the M1 had ‘ECW’ as it’s last Upon arrival at around six I came up to the reception expecting that my long-term stay and three-year loyalty would reward me with a tent right next to the entrance allowing quick. Apparently what it actually results in is being parked so far up the site that it is not covered by the large map handed to all customers and has to be pointed out on a smaller attached map that they don’t even bother printing on nice thick yellow paper.

The tent pitching was a headache but not as soul-destroying as it could have been to start my three-and-a-half week stay. The blind-leading-the-blind setup that was me managing the situation with my mom offering moral support finally meant that the tent was up after about an hour. Unfortunately it was setup on a little slope instead of flat land which I imagine will lead to unusual dreams involving the thing Goldfinger holds James Bond as a laser slowly approaches him to chop his bollocks in half. Man, talk about taking out an adversary’s best weapon. I guess in my dreams the laser will be aimed towards my oversized calves. This morning my mom popped into the tent before she left for Birmingham and inflated my mattress. I now have so much stuff in my tent that there is literally nowhere to move. I can merely crawl in, lie on the mattress and try my best to navigate around on my front or back to get what I need before clambering out the tent every morning like the largest, hairiest baby born outside of Wolverhampton.

Walking for a while with my mom through Edinburgh was fun. She was amazed at the sheer length of the place – and that was really only based on walking around the Princes Street area since it was too late and we were too knackered to go over the North Bridge and walk through the Royal Mile and beyond. It is true you sometimes forget just how vast the place is. It even deceives the eye when you’re walking. You can start a traipse down one of the main roads thinking it will take only a few minutes only for this endless horizon to mean it takes the best part of a quarter-of-an-hour. I think if I need to start getting around places fast I need to learn the bus routes.

So that was day #0. Stay tuned for full report of my first full day at Edinburgh – scheduled are a meet with fellow one-person shows at the participants’ forum and a gathering of Laughing Horse performers at the Espionage just off the main Royal Mile.

Let's Get the Old Albums Out Again

As a child, whenever I was at my grandparents’ house I would make sure to venture into my father’s old bedroom and inspect his record collection. The vinyl stretched from one end of the wall to the other – twenty years’ worth of a collection. I would study the artwork of Never Mind the Bollocks, Sticky Fingers (complete with zipper flies) and the first ever Now That’s What I Call Music. The records that drew my attention the most, though, were from my first favourite comedian – Jasper Carrott.

I’d first become aware of Carrott when I was six and my best friend recited the entire ‘Nutter on the Bus’ routine having me in stitches. I would watch Carrott’s TV shows whenever they were on and soon convinced my Dad to record his albums onto cassette so that I could fall asleep to the likes of ‘Rabbits On and On…’ and memorise classic routines such as ‘Magic Roundabout’ and ‘The Mole’. Despite his immense popularity Carrott had no commercial VHS releases so these albums were the only way to catch his earlier work.

Comedy appears to be in a “best of times, worst of times” situation at the moment. It’s never been so popular, comedians more well-known and outlets for their material more vast – particularly in television. On the other hand the audiences may not be ones many comedians wish to cultivate and their jokes reprinted in publications they find odious. Without wishing to join too voraciously with the backlash, Michael McIntyre’s brand of observational humour is as basic and undemanding as stand-up can be. If this becomes the expected norm of the masses then those who may otherwise wish to experiment live will have to work within the new tighter parameters set by braying crowds.

Shows such as Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week are now so influential that a comedian such as Kevin Bridges – as pointed out in Chortle’s recent review – can go from a fifty-seat Edinburgh Fringe venue in August of last year to performing in front of ten thousand people at Glasgow’s SECC arena essentially off the back of one TV appearance. What strikes me more than anything, though, when I see these shows is the visual of comedians as products on an assembly line with little to tell between them in presentation or material.

I must stress at this point that I don’t fear an overall decline in comedy – there will always be a fringe or alternative side to the mainstream and if that becomes blander hopefully the alternative scene will react to that positively. Most of the people who appear on these shows only do so because all other paths are closed off by close-minded executives who see them as gagsmiths rather than writers, or even artists.

What I am worried about is an industrial shift and the comedy scene becoming more American in its mentality. Many American comedians are criticised by their British counterparts for the shallow nature of both their material and ambition. Most US comedians dream of regular appearances on the Tonight Show doing five-minutes of material pre-approved and honed by executives in the hopes of landing higher paid jobs before an eventual full-time move into television, through either star-vehicle sitcoms with their own name as title or even the mecca of their own late night talk show meaning they can basically abandon regular gigging. As a result the grasping desperation becomes all the more obvious and the artistic quality of their work is very much a means to an end rather than the be all and end all.

If British comedy does follow down that route, and even if it doesn’t, one page we could take out of the US playbook is the return of the comedy album. From the eighties on the album really took a back seat in this country to videos. In the DVD era no comedian that I’m aware of makes any sort of serious commercial audio release of their stand-up.

This is a potentially rich untapped market that could work for both established stars and those bubbling under. This Christmas DVD sales for comedy outsold movies for the first time. Yet this remains a market that would be hard for most unknowns to crack.

One would imagine the cost of producing and marketing a DVD is the key prohibitive factor in Fringe festival favourites from releasing their work. A simple audio recording of decent quality would be a fraction of the cost, the packaging would also be cheaper and the price could be set lower to allow more chance of blind purchases any time of the year instead of taking a chance on a £15 purchase at Christmas time. Strategic marketing in motorway service stations could even lead to late-night purchases from bleary eyed truckers and businessmen.

I remember seeing so many great shows at Edinburgh for the past two years, but I would struggle to remember nearly any of the routines from even the very best shows. As a customer I can say with complete certainty that if made available I would pay for a physical copy of recent shows from the likes of Andrew Lawrence, Pete Johansson, John Gordillo, Paul Sinha and Josie Long. Surely there are enough comedy geeks out there that would say the same to make most ventures at the very least make a slight profit. Andrew Collins and Richard Herring recently made a CD marketed to their podcast audience and it has proven profitable enough for them to promise a follow-up soon.

The cost of production need not even extend to physical copies being created. A recording can easily be made available on iTunes and elsewhere as either an audiobook or even free as a podcast, a move Daniel Kitson has made with admittedly amateurish recordings of his 2004 and 2005 shows. Despite their occasional shoddy audio I cherish those podcasts. As a relative latecomer to Kitson’s outstanding work I am frustrated that nearly all of his past shows are not made available for me to consume in some form or another and I hope that he continues to make releases of this nature in the future regardless of the recording quality.

CDs and audiobooks may even be the best means with which to appreciate a comedian’s work. Without the need for audience cutaways to disguise edits, distracting stage design and a need for more concentration on the listener’s side the words themselves count rather than the presentation. The true quality of the great performer with great material can shine as opposed to the façade of an energetic showman that can hide the hollowness within their words.

We are consuming more audio every year. Recent radio listening figures are the highest they’ve ever been, iPods and MP3 players are becoming cheaper by the year, and a DVD is limited to your home or on a portable player if you are brash enough to wield one in public. Music can be heard on the bus, in the gym, surreptitiously at work, everywhere a DVD can be viewed and in so many more places besides. People are always lending their ears – at the very least comedians should be making their work available.

Comedy albums never went away in the US. As terrible a comedian he may be the fact that Dane Cook’s album Retaliation has sold over a million copies surely shows that there is a market out there for this medium. Maybe it would need a Kay or McIntyre to re-start it but one hit album could be all it takes for record labels to create new comedy divisions and a reactionary punk DIY ethic to emerge from the alternative scene.

Even if CD is a dying medium the romantic idea of record collector is starting to grow within many young-ish men browsing through independent second hand vinyl shops across the country. I have recently planned to start my own vinyl record collection that will hopefully one day rival my Dad’s –since he’s said I can’t just have his old collection since he’s going to sell it one day.

If through some miracle I even have my own child I love the idea of them one day flipping through my albums and spotting a 12-inch Daniel Kitson record, asking me who the bearded man on the cover was and it leading him or her to discovering for themselves something truly special.

I doubt I'd need to record it onto cassette though - I'm pretty sure that will never make a comeback...

Confessions of a "Smart" Wrestling Fan - The shameless promotion starts here!!!!

Okay. This is it. No going back now. Well, you could but that'd be really, really rude. You are really only rude unwittingly. Like the time you listened to your iPod during the office Christmas meal.

Sorry for the personal pep type. Onto business.

So, I'm going to Edinburgh not as a punter, but as a performer. Not as a critic, but as a comedian (for lack of a better noun).

The show is called 'Confessions of a "Smart" Wrestling Fan. It will be a VERY autobiographical piece about my lifelong fascination with squared-circle theatrics that will be used as a way to touch upon events in my life up to this point, the political climate of the last twenty years and some of our deep-seated psychological tics and prejudices.

It will also include some jokes about pornography and very lame puns.

So, the road to Edinburgh starts here...

Toy Story 3D

Recently went to a 3D screening (£1.50 charge when I already kept a pair of glasses from the last 3D film I saw!) of Toy Story and whilst I remembered so much from when I'd previously seen the film I was able to appreciate new facets of the film revealing themselves to me which is in and of itself an example of what makes a truly great film.

What really stood out to me this time was the screenplay and how crammed with brilliant ideas the film is. There is really not a minute that goes past without an excellent bit of dialogue ("Hey, Hamm. Look, I'm Picasso.", "Years of Academy training wasted!", "Oh, great. If anyone attacks we can blink 'em to death.") and visual or storytelling creativity. From the entire look of Pizza Planet to small details such as ANDY having spelt the 'N' correctly on Buzz's foot as compared to Woody's. It's those sort of little things that makes Pixar so much better than all those that have followed in their wake.

I think with all films that are centred around an idea the avenues of the idea need to be vast and explorable for it to endure the entire film's length. The idea behind Groundhog Day worked whereas the idea behind Fred Claus didn't. In the case of Toy Story the idea (or "pitch" to use Hollywood terms) is 'what if toys came to life when their owners weren't looking?'

Pixar explore various pathways to this from the officious nature of an office meeting in the conference where Woody doesn't sound a million miles away from Michael Scott - right down to attemtping to pass over the moving forward of Andy's birthday party to the paranoia of Woody turning him against his better nature and attempting to hurt Buzz in the hopes that Andy will have to take him to Pizza Planet. Every avenue in this maze of ideas has been travelled down with forensic detail and no stone has been unturned if it could contain something that works as a joke, a plot point or a character motivation.

Looking further into this film, as I always am with simple kids stories to justify my watching of them, I think you can read an underlying theme during the whole film about faith. The needy nature of the toys against their fairly impassive "God" in Andy, the fact that they follow a personal code of ethics and live to serve at the pleasure of their owner. One theory I once read in a magazine suggested this was a Platoon-esque Vietnam war allegory with Woody representing the grizzled old soldier and Buzz the All-American idealist who has no idea of what fate awaits him. There are certainly more than a few moments and lines in the film that wouldn't seem out of place in Apocalypse Now.

There are also visual dichotomys between Andy's heavenly light-blue-and-clouds bedroom and Sid's black and neon coloured bedroom, a living hell where monstrous concotions of various old toys have been stitched together by both Sid and the toys themselves. Both aspects of a child's imagination are explored and yet it is the good child that seems to bring the most psychological, lasting damage to his toys in both the first and second film. Sid's damage is superficial and he himself seems to have just as much imagination as Andy but much more curiousity in what exactly makes these creations, sometimes literally, tick. If he tempered his malicious streak a lucrative career in surgery surely beckoned.

Finally, there is a dark night of the soul scene with Buzz that is amongst the most moving in any animated film, perhaps any film ever. Maybe as heart-breaking as the moment Bambi can't find his mother or when Rick Blaine knows his own happiness must be sacrificed for a greater good. Our hero, the most well-meaining of all characters in this film, has his beliefs shattered, his body broken and his spirit crushed. For all the redemption he might gain from then on, the innocence is never the same. He eventually accepts his fate as we all hopefully learn to in our own ways in order to function as we grow older and ever more aware of our own mortality.



Really, our own eyes were opened as well after this film, and would eventually come to realise that a special film studio had just left it's mark and nothing would be the same again. I think we all know that now.

How Seinfeld Killed the Atmosphere

Curb Your Enthusiasm’s seventh season has a running storyline of creator/star Larry David attempting to woo back his wife Cheryl by orchestrating a cast reunion of the classic 90s sitcom Seinfeld. Seinfeld was the show that made David the rich, aimless wanderer as portrayed in Curb who has subsequently spent the past decade flirting around occasional creative forays. In the second season of Curb he pitches a meta-show with Seinfeld alumni Julia ‘Elaine’ Louis-Dreyfus (after falling out with original star Jason ‘George’ Alexander over locations for their meetings) playing an actor typecast by a role she’d had in an extremely successful sitcom. For the most part, though, Curb Larry has spent his time wrestling with the minutiae of LA etiquette and explaining away bizarre actions as varied as hiring a prostitute in order to use the car-pool lane to complimenting a father on the size of his young son’s penis. It seems fitting that the Seinfeld reunion so often called for since the record breaking yet controversial finale over ten years ago has occurred as a show-within-a-show. Jerry Seinfeld and the rest of the cast merely play supporting roles to the man who had run the original sitcom from behind the scenes for most of its nine-year existence.

In Curb’s third episode of the current season, after David attempts to convince Jerry to the merits of the reunion artistically, Jerry notes that this pitch is unlike David and his usually high standards. In particular he notes David’s previous disdain for lesser shows that didn’t match his “aesthetic standards”. After Seinfeld began those standards have indirectly led many comedy observers suggesting the traditional sitcom be declared either an exhausted or dead art-form.

Cheers proudly reminded the viewer in every opening that the show was “filmed before a live studio audience”. David seemed to take no pride in the fact that Seinfeld, which followed Cheers during that show’s final season, was also filmed before a live studio audience. Whilst Seinfeld had used the traditional three-walled sets and three-camera set-up it was against David’s initial wishes. Oftentimes during Seinfeld television in general, and sitcom in particular, is dismissed by the characters on-screen as almost entirely without merit. The values David held so dearly for the show, and insisted upon from the first meeting with executives, can be seen from the start in how the premise, filming and writing removed the previously held requirements of courting the studio audience, the needs for characters to have strong bonds of unity and the use of an emotional sucker-punch towards the end of an episode.

Seinfeld’s initial idea challenged the sitcom norm as the characters of the show weren’t being placed in an instantly recognisable situation for a situation comedy. Usually a sitcom would be based around a family, a work place or a close collection of friends or neighbours. Instead Seinfeld was a premise-led show and the premise was simply ‘where does a stand-up comedian draw inspiration from when writing material?’

Jerry Seinfeld is usually held up as the standard-bearer for the “have you ever noticed…” observational strand of stand-up comedy that is easy to mock but difficult to master. Whilst the edict oft-quoted about the show was that there would be “no hugs, no learning”, Jerry himself was constantly learning as the episode progressed. He was finding new angles to approach aspects of society as presented to him throughout before reaching his conclusions in front of a nameless audience at his regular comedy club explains his lesson learnt at the end of every episode. It’s only in this club setting that Seinfeld makes concessions to an audience, and the audience is one that is shown on-screen and exists within the sitcom’s own world.

After a halting start with low ratings, both in viewers and test screening scores, the show began to build a following. Michael Richards’ Kramer, by far the most outlandish character in both appearance and performance, became the first breakout star; his trademark sliding entrances to Jerry’s apartment started to be greeted with loud cheers from the audience. Whilst contemporary shows like Married with Children encouraged each character’s entrance be met with whoops and cheers David, hating the interruption to the action and unnatural stance of the actors waiting for quiet, seemed to once again try to ignore the fact that Seinfeld was a network prime-time sitcom by quickly requesting, or rather demanding, that the applause be stopped.

As the series continued the stand-up segments decreased in frequency. They initially acted as a Greek chorus as an episode progressed, then as bookends and finally were eliminated all together. Whilst Seinfeld was never “a show about nothing”, as is often used to describe it, each episode essentially became a collection of four stories running in parallel. At the start of each episode all four characters were sent off like spinning tops, occasionally colliding but essentially travelling their own path till they all collapse at the end. David would have episodes be built around something as simplistic as being lost in a car park, waiting for a table at a restaurant or visiting a car dealership with each of the characters carrying their own personal story to a logical conclusion as derived from the situation instead of being forced into it; even when the different strands became entangled towards the end of an episode the reasoning for that felt organic and natural to the separate stories.

Seinfeld writers often recall that an episode’s story was born from a personal experience or a story that they had read being mentioned in passing after having a series of original ideas rejected by Jerry or David on the grounds of being too obvious or clichéd. Instead of having a show feel too written and not rooted in any sort of personal truth they seemed to appreciate and strive for authenticity above all else; that shone through in the writing – even if the truth often seemed more absurd than standard fiction. As a result, real life incidents formed the basis of classic episodes such as “The Soup Nazi” and “The Contest” (that all titles from the second season on would be entitled with a simple definitive is another example of the stripped-down aesthetic principles of David and the show in general). In the alternative Seinfeld reality he and George write a pilot for a sitcom called Jerry where his relationships are replicated on-screen with actors playing George, Elaine and Kramer. Whereas David and Jerry trusted their instincts, George and Jerry second-guess themselves and quickly surrender to network demands, creating a convoluted “Jerry gets a butler through court order” storyline that has no ring of truth to it whatsoever and Jerry is not commissioned for a full series.

Conversely, the dismissal of sitcom conventions allowed more surreal flights of fancy as the show went on. If the audience accepted the artifice of the staging it would also accept events of a bizarre nature happening within this artificial reality – steps that most sitcoms dare not take due to beliefs in realism despite already abandoning naturalism in their setting. The ultimate control the writers had over their characters was played with and odd interventions of fate peppered throughout suggested that these characters in Seinfeld were not fully-rounded people but playthings for an unseen, mischievous, occasionally malevolent, master. Above all else what is funny received precedence over everything else.

Exemplifying the “no hugs, no learning” creed the supporting cast, which was very small for a sitcom, didn’t particularly care for one another and only stayed together as no-one else would tolerate them for long. George was a high school friend who Jerry seems to have kept in contact with solely for confirming his constant superiority over someone else in his life. Kramer was simply Jerry’s neighbour who forces his presence on Jerry and anyone else he meets through sheer ignorance of social convention. Elaine was Jerry’s former long-term girlfriend in a relationship that seems an exception since all other dalliances for both rarely lasted more than one episode. The usual will they-won’t they romances is parodied over the years, with a suggestion in the finale of the expected declarations a true love for one another being quickly quashed.

In the American version of The Office Ricky Gervais’ David Brent character was translated into Steve Carell’s Michael Scott. Whilst Brent had to wait until the last ten minutes of the final episode to receive any form of redemption Scott will usually be forgiven for any transgressions by the end of every episode. Brent’s lasciviousness and malicious streak are also toned down and replaced by a more child-like lust and selfishness in Scott. This is not a slight on the US Office, in many ways it is funnier than its inspiration, but it has clearly chosen a mindset of redeeming features needing to be more prevalent in their leading characters to sustain the longevity required for success in the American market, whereas the BBC original had the luxury of a mere fourteen episode-long existence. Again, Seinfeld resisted that tenet of American comedy and had four characters that seem to revel in the misery of those around them and make no attempt to amend or admit to their own faults. These are characters that will refuse to resuscitate a man on grounds of personal discomfort, shove women and children out of the way to escape a burning house, kidnap a neighbour’s dog for being too loud and tell a woman they need a nose job.

Every single convention and rule of the sitcom as lay down by predecessors and network executives fearful of change was broken, ignored, ridiculed or worked around. David and Jerry were essentially a perfect blend of bloody-minded stubbornness and cool diplomacy. The stories of David walking off-stage within moments of his stand-up sets, excoriating the audience as he left, suggested he was a comedian who never particularly felt the need for validation from a group of strangers that his ideas were funny. The filtering of David’s intentions through the voice of Jerry and others led to an air of subversion throughout the show.

That subversion was finally exposed in the series’ finale. The dark streak that ran throughout Seinfeld became centre-stage in the controversial series finale. It was one of the most-watched television events of all time and written by a returning David who had left two seasons earlier. Again, instead of going the tried and tested way of emotional goodbyes, tear-jerking sentimentality and general self-congratulation, David knew better. He was aware that, as loved as the show was, the characters themselves were by their very nature unlovable and over the previous nine seasons had left a wealth of emotionally broken and morally disgusted people in their wake. These four didn’t deserve commendation, they deserved condemnation. Observational humour is even criticised as the cast watched on as an obese man was being robbed. Instead of intervening or alerting authorities they filmed the event and provided running commentary, mocking the victim whilst they did. That emotional distance that was the trademark of this show about “nothing” is finally concluded to be cowardice and cold-heartedness; the “nothing” of the show perhaps only referring to their lack of humanity. Even as they are sent to prison for their breaking of a “Good Samaritan” law they accept it with a generally blasé attitude and less annoyance than previous reactions to someone “re-gifting” or accusations of “double-dipping”. Perhaps the audience were being condemned as complicit in their enjoyment of these escapades and this would explain the uproar that it was greeted with by some, and referenced by Alexander recently in Curb.

Just as Seinfeld seemed to defy all rules made for sitcoms by the network commissioners and executives through to the bitter end, those same people in power seem to have equally bitterly defied taking any note of the one show that broke all their rules becoming the most successful sitcom of all time. Instead, we have continued to get studio audience sitcoms with perfect families, lessons learnt, convoluted stories and obvious meddling from executives and focus groups.

The direct influence of Seinfeld at times seems non-existent, an aberration that had never worn obvious influences on its own sleeve. In the first season or so of Friends it was clear that the pitch had been along the lines of “Seinfeld with the cast of Melrose Place and plenty of hugs” but that show eventually found its own voice.

Others such as The Drew Carey Show seemed to share some similarities in character dynamic, but generally the argument could be made that, at least on a superficial level, nothing has changed. Whilst studio audience sitcoms have subsequently come out of decent-to-good quality (Will & Grace, Black Books, 3rd Rock from the Sun) none have the air of a classic that will spoken of in the same revered tones as such predecessors as Frasier, Blackadder or, of course, Seinfeld.

All great sitcoms created since Seinfeld ended, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been single-camera location-shot programmes; examples being both versions of The Office, 30 Rock, Peep Show, Arrested Development, Spaced and Curb. The reason might be that, whether conscious of it or not, the creators of those shows know that in its traditional form the sitcom has been perfected – stripped down to its most raw components and made to function in purest efficiency. If it cannot be improved upon the challenge is to take the genre down different avenues and explore new possibilities. Whilst Seinfeld cannot claim full credit for showing those possibilities – a portion must be afforded to The Simpsons and Garry Shandling’s post-modern audience inclusive It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and subsequent single-camera HBO original The Larry Sanders Show – it did expose the limitations of another one; whilst Simpsons and Shandling pointed to the future Seinfeld made a clear delineation between that and the past. Just as how after The Jazz Singer all subsequent silent films’ were immediately exposed in their limitations; after Seinfeld all sitcoms made now without a fourth wall will seem intentionally obtuse and as hollow as canned laughter.