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Jesus 'H from Steps’ Christ I am glad I am not doing the Edinburgh Fringe Podcast this year. Two days in and I am pretty much dead on my feet already. If I’d been doing the podcast too I would be in hospital already (I reckon I will be there by the middle of week 2 anyway). I know a few of you feel aggrieved that you don’t get your free daily dose of Herring from the Fringe this year, but it really took the effort of a much younger man than me to do it. If I manage to catch up on sleep and all the other stuff I have to do then I might try to do a few non-audience chats with other comics throughout the Fringe. But I am not promising anything. And so far my days have been stupidly full. I hoped I would get time for reading and maybe seeing other shows, but not so far.
This afternoon I went to see the Fringe premiere of “I Killed Rasputin”. It’s the first time I have seen the show with an audience (though admittedly it wasn’t a massive audience) and I was nervous. The cast were a little bit nervous too I think, but in spite of a couple of fluffs and the odd misplaced sound cue, it was a strong performance of the piece. It came in at bang on 80 minutes which was a relief too. I am too close to the thing to be able to judge if the writing is any good, but the acting is great and there were loads of laughs. It’d be ace to see it in a full room or even a half full room, but Jeez, a month or so ago I couldn’t even imagine this existing as a play and here it was. The audience seemed to be engaged. I suppose now I just have to sit back for a month and see how the dust settles. But thanks to the director and the cast for doing such a fabulous job. You can read their biogs here.
Again I wanted to go to sleep at 8pm, but I stayed awake this time and my energy returned in time for the show, now complete with proper surprise ending. There are quite a few surprises actually. Keep the secret (about the end, you can tell people it’s on). I was pleased with the perf and the smallish crowd responded well. Stewart Lee and my wife (not the same person) were both in the audience and both of them feature to some extent in the show. I went for a drink with them afterwards and had my first beer in over three months. But just one. I am not planning on getting back into regular boozing. I don’t think I can take it at the moment. So far I have walked everywhere and so have lots of spare calories, but it’s the hangovers I fear more than anything. Hopefully I can get into a more relaxing routine once the thing is up and running. But both the play and the stand up show are on their feet. There is work to be done on both and much work to be done in finding an audience. But I felt slightly less depressed about my prospects by the end of the day.
