I felt worse today. My throat was sore, my voice was weak and cracking and I felt tired to my bones. But just one more show to get through. Just 65 more minutes of talking and then the whole thing was done.
I drank orange juice, sucked on throat sweets and tried to relax. But nothing was really helping.
Yet the show must go on. I could do it. Just because I was boiling hot one minute and cold the next didn't mean that I couldn't go on. I had done 29 hour long shows in the last 24 days, as well as a few extra gigs, with no day off and so perhaps it was no surprise that I was nearly out of gas, but there were still fumes in the tank and 185 idiots left to entertain.
And I got through it. My voice was crackly and painful for the first twenty minutes and then something seemed to shift back into place and in the short term all was working almost fine. It was a terrific last show in spite of all this, with an audience who were really appreciative and who gave several rounds of applause. It was great to get through it for the final time (for the moment) and I even remembered to tape it for once.
I had planned to shave off the moustache on stage, and took my new beard trimmer on with me. Luckily though I left it, as I found out immediately afterwards the razor was only capable of trimming down to a minimum of three millimetres and it would have been something of an anti-climax to merely leave with a thinner toothbrush.
After a drink and some dinner, my girlfriend helped me cart my props and remaining boxes of programmes down to the Cowgate, to get a cab home. I foolishly went for two boxes at a time, which proved pretty heavy for such an ill man and there was an interesting moment when I nearly tripped over my shoe-lace at the top of the hard stone stairs backstage at the Underbelly. That would have been a great end to the Fringe.
I felt happy to be leaving, even though it has been fun this year, but I was also pretty certain that this would be the last time I played this venue (at least for the time being). I have been in this same room for four years now and they've been some of the best years I've had at the Fringe, but the heat is just too unbearable in there. I may have made a similar promise last year, but next year (if I am here) I promise to be in a more comfortable and wheelchair friendly venue. Thanks to the staff of the Underbelly for four great years though. Please try and get some air conditioning in your venues (and it's not just the Underbelly that is at fault with that issue). If I was Duke of Edinburgh then all venues would have to get air conditioning by law and all landlords would have to charge the same amount for their flats as they charge in every other month of the year.
I am going to marry the Queen if Phillip dies first, so watch out Edinburgh. I might be coming at you sooner than you think.
By the time I got home and had transferred the boxes to my car I was even more tired and sweaty and unhappy, but I had one more thing that needed to be done, before a glass of champagne. I went to the bathroom and shaved off the moustache. Not for the first time and not for the last. But it was good to get rid of it.
I had got so used to it that I now just looked strange without it. I wanted to mark this moment with honesty and so took a picture of myself, with Samuel Beckett in the background, looking red eyed and feverish, but hairless. Some people seem to think I look like a woman or a lesbian in this photo. I think I look odd and I was surprised to see how much room there was between my nose and my mouth and the fact that I don't really have any noticeable philtrum. Has the moustache acted like face stretching acid? I was sure I looked different before.
I went to bed for an early night, as we planned to leave before 8.30am, but despite my exhaustion and illness I found it hard to drop off.
But even so it was a relief to have my face back and a relief to have got through this difficult but enjoyable year. Thanks for coming if you did.
