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Usually by the penultimate (though this year, for me, it’s the final) Sunday, however well things are going, I’ve had enough and am ready to go home. But although the passage of time has started to drag a little bit and it seems impossible that there were still seven shows to go, I am still really enjoying myself. I think mainly because this is almost like a holiday for most of the time, albeit one where I am stressed and super tired. It’s fun hanging out with the family in the day and then nice to pop up the hill for a show and then come straight back again.
I took Phoebe to the park before lunch, where there was a huge slide, but Phoebe bounded up the slope to it as usual, as I tried to follow her and was scared. The slide worked well the first time and she flew down, but later it stopped being slippy and loads of kids were scooting down it, until one of them had the idea to use their jumper as a sledge. It was fun.
I bumped into Sarah Kendall for the third time this festival. I have probably seen her more often than any other performer about from James Acaster and the cast of Derevo. And we haven’t even tried to arrange to meet. I think she’s stalking me. I have always suspected that she loves me and bitterly regrets her own marriage and hates her two children, because they aren’t mine. Well bad luck, Kendall. You lost out. Get over it. Stop stalking me.
It was a great daddy/daughter couple of hours, except when I dragged Phoebe away from the slide and she then cried and called for mummy all the way home. But until then we were a little team of bubbles and slides.
We had a late family lunch/dinner in an Italian restaurant near our house, where a five-year-old French girl called Eva clearly wanted to make friends with Phoebe and they ended up stickering for a good half an hour together. Eva couldn’t speak English and Phoebe couldn’t speak French (or English really), but stickers are an international language. Stickers could unite the world.
I had hoped for a rollover effect after last night’s show sold out so early, but the people who were turned away yesterday did not all rush to come tonight and the theatre was half full again. It’s not a bad amount of punters, but it made me worry for Wednesday and Thursday next week. But even though tonight’s crowd did not sing “Woo ooo” over the opening track, they were very much up for the comedy and for some reason I had the energy to knock it out of the park and was able to ride their laughs and add a lot of subtlety to the performance. It was one of the best ones I’ve done. To still be enjoying doing the show at this stage of the Fringe is a triumph. Hopefully I can get the rest of it in good spirits.
And Chris Evans (not that one) (or that one) and his team have done amazing work to get the sixth long episode of AIOTM ready for the secret channels. The 20 minute shorter versions (that all still contain 40+ minutes of material) should be up very soon. It’s been an incredible slog to get these to you, so we hope you enjoy them. What we have achieved on a £15,000 per episode budget is frankly fairly amazing. Though a fair deal of it looks like it might have cost less than that!
