My 20th Fringe is now truly under way, as are both my 31st and 32nd shows. I had been tempted to take a piece of chalk with me to the gigs and write "31" and "32" on the respective walls, in a homage to Charles Bronson in "The Great Escape", but I was a bit too busy to locate the necessary prop.
I was teching "What Is Love, Anyway?" in the morning, which although we had a two hour window only took 15 minutes. But I was glad it was over so fast as I had to prepare for the first "Richard Herring's Edinburgh Fringe Podcast" or as all the cool kids are calling it RHEFP. I didn't want to plan too much, but the format I had hastily devised was a 10 minute opening bit of stand up from me, then a 35 minute chat about whatever came up with my guest (Michael Legge in this case), then a 5 minute set from a newer comedian (Catie Wilkins today) then a competition in which someone could win cash and prizes (and if anyone wants to donate any prizes do get in touch - you will get a mention in the iTunes chart topping podcast). Luckily there was some funny food in face based news, with Johnny Marbles being sentenced and also (rather well timed for PR purposes) Paul Daniels supposedly being hospitalised after he'd had a pizza thrown in his eye by Sooty. I tried to think of which puppet I would most like to be attacked by, which gave me some vague ideas for a routine, but I didn't want to script it.
The first show passed in a bit of a blur, but luckily Michael was full of bile and very funny stories and the format seemed to work well. I was recording the show on my Tascam which was perched on a table in front of us, but this was just a back up, because the Stand's ever reliable Chris was recording it all through the desk. Which was lucky because Dave, who won £50 and some tickets to some other shows and a Hitler Moustache DVD (Well worth coming to see the show live) overwhelmed with his triumph managed to knock my expensive Tascam recorder on to the floor, causing the recording to end as well as a couple of bits to fall off. It seems it is OK, but none of the show survived on that recorder. It was an exciting end to the show, but meant that in my horror I forgot to thank my guests, which Michael Legge was later complaining about on Twitter, the stupid politeness obsessed twat. Thank you, Michael. Are you happy now, you dick?
You can download the podcast
here or
subscribe on iTunes. Let us know what you think. I am going to try my best to keep the content as different from Warming Up as possible, but of course, there will be some overlap. Especially as time goes on and this mad endeavour becomes more difficult.
I really needed to use the next couple of hours to think about my other show, but instead I spent it all struggling to upload the podcast, which was an Audacity file and was either too big for me to send, or when I reduced it got corrupted. I gave up at 8.10pm and went to do my show.
As it was cheap preview time I was hoping I would have a sell out on my hands, but there didn't seem to be too many people around yet and I got a respectable 50% attendance. Which is fine for now, but hopefully that will pick up. I didn't do the first Wednesday last year, but I sold out the Thursday, but it's too early to draw any conclusions.
Strangely having not done the show for two nights it seemed a bit foreign to me and I had to really think hard to remember what came next, but the slight struggle helped me deliver a solid, if rather pacey show, which went down well with the crowd, though there seemed to be some drunker people at the back who were laughing during the poignant bit about my gran, which hasn't happened before. I think it was probably the most assured first night I have had in Edinburgh, which comes I suppose from having put in the work and done 40+ previews. But I knew it had to be good. There was at least one reviewer in. Though I know the show will get better, I felt content with the way it had gone. It looks like I will need good reviews to sell the seats, so fingers crossed. I only overran by about 2 minutes, which I might get away with.
Afterwards I headed to a party in the caves, which as it sounds is quite a claustrophobic venue as it is, but it was rammed full of people and I knew as soon as I was through the door that I wouldn't be able to stand it in there. I was thirsty after my show and it looked like it would take half an hour to just get a drink, so I bailed out, like the old fart I am and went to a quiet Thai restaurant with my girlfriend instead. It was much nicer.
I had felt a bit punch drunk all day and both shows had washed over me somewhat, but it had been an encouraging start. And I finally managed to sort out the podcast upload issues when I got home (and imagine what Hell this would have been if I had been using a Vodaphone dongle).
I was so tired at the end of all this that my body hurt - I haven't been sleeping too well and today was non-stop. But fears of losing thousands of pounds aside (and it seems audiences were low across the board today) I could afford to go to bed feeling content, if a little frazzled. I think we're going to have fun this year! But maybe in quiet restaurants rather than crowded caves.
I love you Edinburgh. I lu-uh-uh-uh-uhve you.
And in other exciting news, the wonderful Welsh nitwits at gofasterstripe.com have stopped eating seaweed long enough to bring out
AIOTM: The Complete Cumpkin, a beautifully designed package including every episode of the seminal podcast stand up and sketch show, plus all the secret stand ups that I did in the 2nd and 3rd seasons, plus a video of one of the shows, plus the scripts, plus a double sided poster. There's 35 hours 37 minutes of audio and 1 hour 38 minutes of video. It's the perfect gift for anyone who loved the series or any of the millions of idiots who have never heard of it. And it's only £15. Which seems a small price to pay for all those days of sweat, tears and near madness that I suffered.
