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…
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