Hello Edinburgh. No epiphany or surge of endorphins as I drove into town today. Sometimes it feels magical to arrive here, but my stomach only gave a very occasional somersault and I was more concerned with making it to the flat and having a wee.
The first day here is usually mundane in any case. I had to get all my stuff out of the car and up four flights of stairs. I remember one year in the mid-90s when all I had to do was take a suitcase up a similar amount of stairs and it almost killed me. I am fitter than that younger me (at least the one of that year) and even though I am snotty and still a little unwell I made five or six trips with only a light sprinkling of perspiration appearing). I am the first to arrive, which is something I usually aim to be, because then you get the best room and it's hard for anyone to shift you once you're in. The law of "I was here first" applies and most people respect that immutable ruling. But occasionally you have to do a ballot and move all your stuff. Not this year I fancy. I did all the work booking the flat too so I am entitled. Plus this has been my room for the last two years as well. So I can really rock the "I was here first thing". I was here in 2008 motherfuckers.
It had been gloriously sunny when I arrived and as I was shown in by the young man from the letting company I remarked that with luck it would be like this all month. We laughed sardonically at the impossibility of this. Indeed by the time all my stuff was up the stone stairs (
once littered with feathers, but now only flecked with someone's flobby spit) it was pissing down (or if you're Scotch - pishing down). I still had to go on my annual pilgrimage to find somewhere to leave the car and the long two to three miles trudge back from there (or further if paid parking had spread its tendrils further away from the centre of town). Even though none of my flatmates are here yet I went to so a basic supermarket shop -
Usually most people show up on Sunday, but Collings won't be here til Friday and Justing (Moorhouse his year, rather than Edwards) isn't here til midweek. Tom Wrigglesworth who completes the all male line up this year (we are referring to ourselves as JART - and helpfully Andrew Collings will be replaced by Andy Parsons in the last week of the Fringe so we can continue as JART with a new line-up. Hopefully we might write some songs and become a band, like ABBA, except called JART), will be here in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I have some time to myself, which I am actually glad of.
So it was a couple more trips up the stairs with bags of detergent and toilet roll, followed by a frustrating 45 minutes trying to get the broadband and central heating to work. I failed with both. This again is something of an annual tradition. It is in these first few days that I recall why this flat, which in many ways is lovely, is actually a bit shit, especially given the amount of money we are pouring into the coffers of the greedy and ungrateful Edinburgh residents. Similarly at this time of year I always think that it might be nice if Edinburgh Council showed some gratitude to the veteran performers who keep coming back every year and thus help to boost the economy of this city by maybe providing free accommodation (after you've done 15 Fringes maybe - it shouldn't be for any old fly-by-night riff-raff) or at least a parking pass. Or maybe a voucher for a free cup of coffee. I am nothing if not self-serving, as Stewart Lee acknowledges in his book (of which more in a bit) - but then at least I am honest about it and don't wrap it up in pretending I care about some higher principle!
I then drove down to the street that I have parked in for the last two years and found to my relief that not only was there ample space, but it seemed that it was still free to park there. I passed the streets that I had parked in in the early 2000s with a wistful look. I am outside a church. Surely Jesus will keep an eye on the car for me. It's been OK for the last two years. Fingers crossed for a third. And maybe next year, my 20th Fringe, Edinburgh council will grant me the freedom of the city and the citizens will install me in the poshest room in Edinburgh Castle in gratitude for my many years of service to them.
And maybe it will be sunny for the whole month of August.
I was feeling a lot better today (though later reading S Lee's book, his Ang Lee routine - which I have never actually seen as I made a conscious effort to avoid watching him around this time, aware that we would be similar enough already and thus being able to deny the accusations, of which there were a few, that I was copying him - I would laugh so much that I brought on a coughing fit that I thought might actually kill me, which I am sure would delight Lee if it had happened) and the walk back to the flat was pleasant enough exercise. I had bought some suits a couple of weeks ago in a sale and the trousers on both had been too tight to fasten up. I tried them on this evening and could just about get them done up. Three weeks after my vomiting incident I am probably 10 pounds lighter and noticeably thinner. I am hoping Edinburgh walking (and gyming) will make those trousers comfortable to wear - though in the short term (as I will be wearing one of the suits in the show) I may get the assistance of a tailor. I stay determined to make this year's Edinburgh a health spa that I pay for by doing a couple of gigs a day.
The flat was cold this evening and I had no luck with the central heating, but unpacked and watched Sherlock which as some others have observed is a bit of a cross between Dr Who and Jonathan Creek, though perhaps that says more about those shows and their debt to Arthur Conan Doyle (or as my girlfriend charmingly called him J Arthur Doyle) than it does about this one. I hadn't thought the first episode was as amazing as everyone had said, but had still enjoyed it (it still stands head and shoulder above most UK popular drama). This one wasn't as good though and the pace was a bit languid in places and it seemed odd in a programme that embraced new technology so happily that there was the suggestion that every home has an A to Z of London. Maybe in 1998, but now surely many Londoners eschew that in favour of smart phone technology. Or just by knowing where they need to go. I was a bit unclear how the page reference related to words as well. Isn't page 15 of the A to Z a map? But quibbles aside I still liked it enough to tune in again. Does this story need updating? Don't know. It is interesting to see it attempted though. I have much time for Stephen Moffat (he has bought himself a lifetime of support for creating Press Gang) and Mark Gatiss (who has never been as good as his most famous comedic creation - the voice of Greg Evigan in TMWRNJ). I hope I get the chance to write for TV again before I choke to death on a Stewart Lee routine.
I was going to go to bed early, but having my first bit of downtime for quite a while I carried on reading SG Lee's book (which I've had for ages and only dipped into til now), which is well worth a read, even if you are not personally mentioned in a mixture of complimentary and patronising terms on every fifth page.
It is a weird experience for me to read it of course, but it is mainly about Stew's solo career and skips over the thirteen years we worked together as relatively unimportant (which is fair enough in most ways). So although it's hard for me to give it a distanced appraisal I have to say that it is terrifically enjoyable and fascinating. Although Lee perhaps dwells a little on how hard things have been for him (pot and kettle anyone?), it is a very honest (as far as Lee is capable of honesty - I am sure he believes all the things he says, but he has created a legend about himself in some ways with hindsight, but it is a myth that he believes - when he is dead I will write a book about him which will reveal the truth, as well as some carefully selected self-aggrandising lies - but there is every chance that I will die first, or be murdered by him to prevent this, or we might go together in a homosexual suicide pact. With his bowels and my workaholism it is anyone's guess who will get to rewrite history as well as releasing a DVD with the living one holding a picture of the dead one and looking sad). And he did have a horrific struggle that I can more than identify with, and faced a lot more flak than I ever did from critics.
But it is a real account of the life of a principled and hard working stand up comedian, in a way that Peter Kay's book is not. In fact read them one after the other and you will see just how dishonest and unself-aware Kay is. Stewart has thought very hard about his career and about comedy. Much harder than I have and I am extremely analytical. It is interesting to read his own account of how he pretty much gave up and then what spurred him to return. And it's a brilliant thing for any comedian to read. Because becoming successful is this hard (for everyone by Peter Kay) and needs to be this hard. The struggle and the fight and the filth and the fury are what spur you on to create something beautiful and ugly. So ugly that it's beautiful.
He makes his Luddite desire to maintain the ideals of 1980s Alternative comedy seem admirable and noble. But unlike the 70s comedians who used to complain about how things had moved on in the 90s he is still at the cutting edge of comedy. I am a big fan of progress and moving onwards and not harking back to the past, but he makes an excellent, if only occasionally biased, argument for where comedy has gone wrong. Though unlike for the 70s comedians there is still more than enough room for him in this modern comedy environment. His arguments about the new clubs now being the alternative to the established clubs that were once alternative is very true. But occasionally he's so right-on about his own stuff that you want to slap him. And I might slap him. Because I have a palm and access to his face.
He is also very fair about revealing his sources and his inspirations. It is interesting that he is self-righteously and correctly angry about gag theft from others, when so many of his ideas start from comments or suggestions from other people. And how things like the ET doll at Princess Di's mourning donations was actually witnessed by someone else. But there is an enormous difference to the way he uses these ideas. Developing, making them his own and exploiting them in a way that no one else would imagine doing so. It's not the same as Joe Pasquale stealing a joke from someone else. It's like an artist being influenced by another and then running with an idea. As all art should be.
Lee is a magpie, but one with a King Midas touch transforming banality to comedy gold. He's the Midas Magpie. I hope he adopts this name and gets it printed on the back of a gold coloured dressing gown which he wears everywhere he goes.
I remember being a little upset in the mid-90s when I was drunk and he was doing his "All Things Bright and Beautiful" routine to a guffawing audience, when my own stand up career had faltered and failed. Because that whole bit had begun at a wedding where this was one of the hymns and me and Rob Newman and Stew were sitting in a row and me and Rob got into hysterics as the song was being sung, without needing to explain why to each other, as we became aware of the ludicrous nature of the lyrics. Stewart stood by us looking confused, not knowing why we were laughing. I explained to him what I was finding so funny. He then took all the things I had said to him and made it into a routine. But firstly I would never have thought of turning that into a routine, or even seen its comic possibilities, even though I had tears rolling down my eyes at the time and also the way he executed the material and added to it (especially with the introduction of the Venn diagram thing) made it completely his own anyway. He saw possibilities that I would never have seen (certainly at that time) and in any case a lot of comedy comes out of talking to other people, or reading something by someone else (my Lazarus joke in the current show came to me after reading Bukowski - he might even have made the point I do and the thing I sometimes do about the star of Bethlehem is lifted from Nativity by Geza Vermes, just with some jokes attached). It's really interesting to see how Stew got his ideas - or how he recalls them in any case - he has a really terrible memory in many senses - in the 90s Stew would often recount gags or stories to me as his own, that I myself had already told him. Sometimes earlier that day.
But to complain would be like the Lisa Gherardini claiming that Leonardo da Vinci had stolen her face when he painted the Mona Lisa.
It's what you do with it that counts.
Stew is self-aware enough to joke around about the people he talks about and acknowledges the way lines are blurred between him and his "clown". And his rudeness about others is usually mainly a joke (or disguised as a joke) and is also very funny. I am ultimately surprised how much credit he gives me. Even though it is nowhere near enough! And in some ways too much.
It really sent my mind spinning and much as I enjoyed it, it made me realise how much I have to do. Lee is luckier than he realises I think (and getting to a point now where he can no longer claim to be undervalued or impoverished, which he seems to realise is an odd transition for him to make, which alters the way some of his comments are perceived), but so am I. I have to contend with people commenting that I have clearly been influenced by Ricky Gervais, but also by some who think I have copied Stewart Lee (not very much any more, but certainly a few years ago), without realising that we worked together for a decade and a half. It's hard to know who has been influenced by who, as Stew's attributions to others shows very clearly. But like I say Stewart came back with a vengeance (and I think vengeance plays more of a part in his psyche than he perhaps knows) and established himself as one of the most important comedians of his generation. And its exciting, illuminating and frightening to read about it. It makes me see how much work I have to do, though I have made big strides in the last few years. Tonight I felt maybe it was too much work. Maybe I should forget about it and concentrate on giving myself a successful personal life. And just staying alive. So I can stitch dead Lee up when he has pooed himself to death.
You should definitely buy his book though. It is brilliantly written, pedantic, thoughtful, illuminating and funny enough to kill you if you're already a bit ill and in a cold Scotch flat (Lee also makes a good claim to be the originator of that shared Lee and Herring gag with a classic "I was here first" manoeuvre).
I am pleased that I am in a place where I am glad about his success and proud of him too. Ultimately it's good for me to be constantly compared to someone who is so good at this job because if means I have to keep upping my game. And now I have to do better so I don't just end up (as Lee feared he would be re Gervais) as a literal footnote in his history.
Or worse a footnote of a footnote in Gervais' biography.
