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This week Sooz Kempner tweeted about there being 11 Edinburgh Fringe performances left and I commented that at this stage of the Fringe there are 11 shows left for what feels like two weeks. Somehow time stands still and it feels like each performance doesn't get taken off the tally.
I haven't thought much about the Fringe this year. I've really been enjoying the summer and not a part of me is wishing that I had popped up to do a couple of shows or just to watch. I don't know if I've broken the addiction forever, but I certainly have no regrets about refusing to put myself through all of that again. My Edinburgh podcasts continue without me having to step foot in the city or more importantly pay anyone to do them, but they were all recorded a while ago and don't even tangentially feel like I am taking part.
I think Catie may want to go back next year, but she went last year and I didn't (even to visit) so that doesn't mean I have to.
The years I missed in the early 90s did hurt. I was glad not to go back in 1989 after my awful experience in the 1988 Oxford Revue, but I was envious that Stew got to do it in 1990 and 1991 and I didn't. I nearly got a part in a revival of Beyond the Fringe in 1990 or 1 (which it was probably lucky that I didn't get as that was a bad idea - though my audition did lead me to getting cast in a lunchtime revue of Hamlet sketches which was on in the West End. I was going to be Hamlet in all the sketches, which again might have been a big deal, but I was miscast of course and got fired part way through rehearsals), but didn't get to go to the Fringe. Staying in London in 91 to write for the second of series of On The Hour.
I was sad not to go, but then went for the next eight years straight and was sad most of the time too! Though we did make a name for ourselves partly due to those many shows we'd do and I started to feel less of an outsider trying to get in eventually. It wasn't until I got to share a flat with Lucy Porter, Sarah Kendall and Justin Edwards in the noughties that I mainly started to enjoy myself and those were (mostly) the golden years for me. You can go back and read about them and see if my memories are right of course, though I would never have written too much about the depressions that always hit me in that horrible place.
I owe the Fringe a lot and still love it, just like someone in an abusive relationship still loves the person who is abusing them (though luckily I have distanced myself from the actual people who bullied me). I'd feel sad to think I'd never go back (and maybe the sixty show has to premiere there), but two years off and I do not miss it at all. I haven't felt a second wishing I was there and even now that I've stopped to think about it, I have no regrets.
Good luck to all the sad little motherfuckers who are up there (and I am always glad to see the people I like getting nice reviews or doing well), but Edinburgh remains kingless for another year. And I am happy to retreat into my online world to try out my esoteric ideas for free.
Speaking of which...
After nearly 22 years there are big changes coming to Warming Up that might very well change your life. I am going to start publishing the blog on substack, along with other content. Which means you can get it emailed directly to you, or view it on an app or the substack website.
Imagine that.
If you want you can even pay for it, which could really change your life, especially if you pledged £10,000 a month. More pertinently it could really change my life.
BUT it will all be free to begin with and the blog will remain free and it's possible all the other stuff might be free too. I haven't decided yet. There's also the opportunity to do audio and video on there, so I might even go back to doing the Warming Up podcast!
I guess if it does make significant money that will free me up to do more stuff on there, which I sort of fancy and I am (as always) interested in experimenting with the form.
The nice thing about it is it will allow you to interact with the blogs and with me and me with you and also you with each other. I have no idea how many of you there are. I know my mum and in-laws read it and also Jon Burton. I don't know how keen he is to interact with my mum. I hope not too keen. But I wouldn't put anything past him. Apart from that it might be no one.
I think substack might prove to be a more grown up way to do social media and I have liked what I've seen so far. Though obviously I will make it less grown up. I will start posting there on 26th August,
but you can subscribe now. And watch
the intro video.if you're on my newsletter list then you should already have been subscribed. Do feel free to unsub if it gets too much for you. It almost certainly will. I'm going all in.
The good news for traditionalist Warming Up fans (if any) is that I will continue to publish the blog here, so if you want nothing to change then you can have that too.
I've been lucky enough to do comedy stuff with Stevie Martin over the last few years and I think she is amazing. She's again very funny on today's RHLSTP. Listen here https://shows.acast.com/rhlstp/episodes/rhlstp-522-stevie-martin
