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Last year I was annoyed to see Yoda selling out and doing an advert, but this year I am even more dismayed to see that the Delorean from Back To The Future has been tempted to sup with the devil and whore himself out for cash (it’s also advertising phones). At least Yoda is a representation of a living being (albeit a puppet/CGI one) and so might require money for clothing, food, light-sabres and his English language lessons (How thick is he that he still can’t get his sentences in the right order? Are people too embarrassed to tell him he’s getting it wrong?). But the Delorean is a car. Why would it even need money? It’s not like it can do anything independently of a human being so it doesn’t have to pay for its own petrol or repairs and (depending which version of the car it is and which time stream it is in) it uses rubbish to power its time travelling.
There’s much not to like about the way the advertisers have appropriated the car. It can now apparently travel in space as well as time, can’t fly and hasn’t been smashed up by a train (spoiler alert). It’s also hard to fathom why the woman in the advert, suddenly in just two years transformed into a Hollywood A-lister, decides to take a selfie on the red carpet. She had done so well to make this leap forward in her career and then blows it by looking like an idiot by taking her own photo when surrounded by paparazzi. If I was her I would also be on the look out for the Delorean, having remembered that I’d seen this all happening when I travelled into the future two years ago. And if I knew I was about to become a massive Hollywood star then my first thought wouldn’t be, “Great, I will buy this phone if it’s going to be good in two years,” it would be “Fuck it, give me the most expensive phone you have and I am going to come in here every sing;e day and buy a new one.”
But it’s more upsetting that the car has taken the money and then not even pointed out the inconsistencies in the advert. I don’t think it had even had a disastrous run at the Fringe and needed the money to cover its expenses.
I am not just watching adverts up at the Fringe. I also caught a couple of episodes of Diagnosis Murder, including a first series Chachi one that impossibly I don’t think I’ve seen before, set in a dance class with Elizabeth Berkeley playing a dancer/stripper (I can’t be bothered to search and find out if that’s a Showgirls tribute or if Showgirls is a tribute to Diagnosis Murder).
I am managing to sleep in later and had a lazy afternoon, but managed to drag myself down to the gym in the evening. I have been lucky that the Saturday shows haven’t been too rowdy, though a few people almost kicked off when they weren’t allowed on to the stage to take a photo at the end of the show - which is a bit weird. The circumstances of the end of the show are unusual, but I don’t think that they warrant the audience drunkenly stumbling though the fourth wall even if the act is “over”. Just over 200 in on the one day I hoped that I might get a sell out. My stand up, it is safe to say will not be funding my play. Though I suppose my tour will be. Unless I can get an advert in which I play a bastardised version of my 1990s persona alongside Terry Christian. Which I might have to do. If only I was a hasbeen rather than a never was, then maybe the evil world of commercials could save me. But I am going to have dig myself out of this hole on my own. It will be OK. I can afford this hit once, but it will probably impact on the chances I can take in the future and I had been looking forward to taking some more. I am very happy to plough the money I make from my job back into making more stuff that no one else would let me do. Even if the lesson is that maybe people are right not to let me do this stuff!
I went to Brooks performers bar for this first time this Fringe. As it has been a regular haunt over the last decade it felt almost unbelievable that I hadn’t been through its door for 12 months. This is one of the anomalies that Edinburgh throws up. Stuff that happened last year or longer ago feels like days ago. It didn’t seem possible that I hadn’t been in this room more recently. It was nice to bump into a few performers though. I’ve really been keeping myself to myself this year like the Man in a Vacuum living on an island that I am. A large whisky courtesy of the charming Christian Reilly, whose show on the Free Fringe is doing very well for him was a nice way to finish the day. Two thirds of the way through. The last week is unlikely to bring many surprises, but you never know. I feel fresher and less tired than I ever have at this stage (having had my energy dip in week one) and unusually am still making it down to the gym most days, which is rarely the case at this stage. Nearly time to go home and then we can start to dissect the month less emotionally and see what's come out of it all.
