On the board

It's been a strange week for my show. From getting pretty nice numbers every day, on Wednesday I walked out on stage to see just five people in the audience, plus a reviewer sitting at the back! It was a particular shock because I'd been told that I'd sold at least 15 that morning, so something must have gone wrong with the box office system, or someone was looking at the wrong figures. Playing to that few people is always difficult, especially in a big room in Edinburgh, but because I knew a reviewer was it was important that I just deliver the show as well as possible, and I performed with as much energy as I could muster. It actually went well, and led to a nice review. But it was odd.

The next day I had a larger, but weirdly much harder audience. Lots of older people in, who didn't seem to get some of the references or enjoy the slightly ruder material in the show. Something I've noticed over the years is that even if older people enjoy a comedy show, they often don't laugh out loud - that seems to be something that younger people do more often, so ideally you need a mix of age groups. It was definitely the case on this night. I even had a couple of friends in who said things like: "I really enjoyed it, I don't know why we weren't all laughing!" A bit frustrating. I think I had a reviewer in that night as well: in some ways I'd have preferred him to be there the previous night!

Friday was ok, although I didn't feel on top form - I think the exhaustion of doing the Festival was suddenly beginning to hit me, and at one point near the beginning of the show I felt really light-headed and spaced-out. Quite disconcerting when you know you have to do another 40 minutes of material! I was probably a bit on auto-pilot for the rest of the show, trying to get through it without literally fainting... Thankfully I got some sleep that night and felt a lot better for Saturday. That was a relief, because on Saturday I finally managed to get on the board!

It's a phrase all comics talk about at the Fringe: if you sell out your name gets chalked up on the Sell Out board. I wasn't sure that I'd ever manage it this year because I'm in quite a big room and relatively early in the evening, but yesterday was a busy day with many shows selling out, including mine!

It made such a difference playing to a large audience in that room. There was so much more energy from the start, and I really enjoyed the show again. I even added some adlibs and little bits here and there which I haven't used for a while. I felt relaxed and in control for the first time in a couple of days, and I'm now really looking forward to the final week of performances. If I can get on the board another one or two times, that would be brilliant. And hopefully I won't have to play to five again...

Day Off

Monday was my day off. Everyone told me that I should make the most of it - get out of Edinburgh, do something completely unrelated to the Fringe, generally escape the madness for a bit. What I actually did was go and see two shows that clash with mine, then spend the evening drinking with other comedians in Brookes Bar.

It was fun though. I really enjoyed Richard Herring's show The Headmaster's Son, and then had a good time in the bar chatting to various people I haven't seen all festival. Doing a full hour every day has been quite tiring, so I haven't felt that up for socialising every night. However, now we're over half way through I feel like I can relax a little bit. I've also just made a list of shows that I really want to see in the next couple of weeks. If I get to half of them I'll be impressed!

The evening before my day off I performed at Spank, which was brilliant. It's the only really late gig I've got booked in this year and I wish I was doing more of them. It was great fun performing to a big, rowdy audience, even if the microphone wasn't working for the first minute...

Ten years on

I had a good day yesterday. The weather was warm and sunny (well, grey, but I'm now working on Edinburgh expectations so it felt warm and sunny) and I had a really enjoyable show. I think it was the best of the run so far, in front of one of the smallest audiences. There were only about 20 people in, but they were really nice and I enjoyed performing for them. I think there might have been a reviewer in as well, but I didn't spot anyone writing notes, so if they were there it was in disguise...

The strangest thing about the show yesterday was that during it I discovered that a family in the audience had previously seen me ten years ago in Edinburgh when I performed in my first student show. It was nice to think that they recognised me and decided to see what I was up to now, and quite bizarre to realise that it was a whole decade since my first show here. Someone also came up to me in the Dome and said that they really enjoyed The Big Briefcase, a show I did six years ago. The nostalgia just keeps on coming!

I had another very enjoyable gig at the 99 Club last night, and then tried to get a bit of an early night, which in Edinburgh terms means before 2am. I just about managed it. I've got quite a busy weekend, with two shows plus several extra gigs including a very late one at Spank! on Sunday night. Then Monday is my day off - I have no idea what I'm going to do!

A break in the clouds

The weather in Edinburgh this week has been awful. Really awful. Cold, windy and very very wet. I saw horizontal rain on Wednesday. That's the Scottish summer for you. I'm pretty sure that at least one pair of my shoes has been ruined by being saturated on the walk home a couple of nights ago. I wish I'd brought the Wellington boots I bought for Glastonbury! I saw people on the Royal Mile flyering for the country of Spain the other day. They couldn't have picked a better time. If they were selling tickets on the street, I imagine they'd have a lot of takers.

On the other hand, I'm having a much better time this week than I did last week when the weather was nice. Despite the optimism of my previous blog entry, the following couple of shows were very quiet, and it was getting to a point by Sunday where I was beginning to despair of getting the show to work as well as it had done in previews.

Then on Monday I did a couple of late extra gigs (99 Club and Electric Cabaret) which were a lot of fun and I relaxed properly for the first time since I got here. I remembered that my show is just stand up, and I've been doing that for ages, and with that realisation I began to enjoy it more. The last few shows have been a lot of fun, and the audiences have seemed to be a lot more engaged as well. I don't feel like I've completely nailed it yet, but then there's still a lot of the festival to go.

I'm going into this weekend looking forward to doing the show and also doing a few more extra gigs. It also looks like the weather is going to be a bit nicer. Maybe this time I'll be able to enjoy it!

Third time lucky

Three shows in, and I feel like I'm beginning to hit my stride. Last night we managed to get the heat/noise balance just right so the room was actually quite cool and I could hear the audience. Bonus!

I tried a slightly different opening to the show as well, chatting a bit to the crowd before launching into the show, and that seemed to work better. It's strange getting used to doing an Edinburgh show after working in clubs: the atmosphere is very different. Audiences in Edinburgh seem to come in and sit back, expecting a theatrical "show". Audiences in clubs are often just there for a night out, and usually come in bigger groups and are already in a good mood before the show starts. Both types of audiences have good and bad points, and I'm beginning to work out how I need to approach the Fringe shows in a different way to my club style. My show felt a lot better generally, although it still took a bit of time to warm up. I can feel myself getting more confident though, and that can only be a good thing. I'm relaxing into the festival a bit more, and I think that is translating into a better performance.

I also managed to catch my first other show last night: Dan Antopolski's Penetrating Gaze. I really enjoyed it. Dan is one of my favourite comedians, and his shows are always a great mix of cleverness and silliness. He's also added some "white rapping" to the show this year, which is both hilarious and genuinely impressive.

The PR stuff is beginning to kick in now as well. I've done a couple of interviews for podcasts, which were fun, and have got a radio interview today before the show. It's all useful practice, even if you never really know how much it leads to actual increased audiences.

The city feels busier today. It feels like the Fringe has finally begun. Only three more weeks to go!

Fans

The big news for the second show was that I managed to get a fan installed on the side of the stage, which made the show a lot cooler. Unfortunately it also made it harder for me to hear the audience, which considering that it was a slightly quieter show anyway, made it a bit disconcerting to perform. I concentrated on performing it with the correct pace and timing, and felt like I did a good job, even though it was sometimes difficult to tell what was going on in the audience. People tell me it was a good show though.

I'm looking forward to the weekend - so far this year has been very quiet across the whole city. It's an early festival this year, and I get the feeling that a lot of people don't really know that it has started yet. With any luck that will change soon...or we'll all be having a very quiet year!

And we're off

In time-honoured fashion, my first show did not go entirely without a hitch. There was a fire alarm in the venue earlier in the day (caused by a smoke machine apparently - idiot technology that can't distinguish between real smoke and theatrical smoke!) which meant that my show was delayed by about twenty minutes. Not the best start.

The venue was also incredibly warm. I was sort of expecting this, as it tends to be the case across all venues in Edinburgh, but it was still strange and uncomfortable performing in a sauna-like atmosphere for the first time in a while. I'm sure I'll get more used to it, and the nice venue staff are sorting out some extra fans and stuff, so I think things will probably improve as the run continues.

The show itself was ok. Not amazing but fine. I had quite a few people in, but I think most of them were the result of "papering the house". This is a theatrical term that sounds like the kind of thing you do whilst redecorating a new property, but is in fact just giving away free tickets to bulk up an audience. Most shows do this for the first two or three performances; once the weekend starts you shouldn't need to anymore. Famous last words.

I didn't start brilliantly because I was a bit thrown by the delayed start and the heat and felt like I needed to talk about them at the start. It was a bit stupid, because I just sounded like I was apologising before I'd done anything. Once I got back on track with the show things improved and I was reasonably happy with it. Some bits worked better than others, and I fluffed the odd line and got a couple of things in the wrong order, but that's to be expected for a first show, particularly considering that I haven't done a preview for a week. So overall I think it was a decent start with a few things to work on for tonight.

The weirdest thing was getting used to the fact that it's just me in the show. None of my "people" (promoter, director etc) could make it to the first night so afterwards I just said thanks to the venue staff and walked outside, feeling strangely anticlimactic. I'm so used to doing shows in Edinburgh with other people, when you can immediately dissect the show, discuss what went well and badly, whether it was a weird crowd etc. I just wandered around for a few minutes before heading over to the Pleasance Courtyard to meet some friends. A very odd feeling. I think I've got some people I know coming to the show tonight, so at least I'll be able to discuss it with them afterwards. Also I believe that I have my first reviewer in, so with any luck it'll be a bit tighter and, crucially, on time.

Or I might have to sabotage the smoke machine...

It begins

In the last 24 hours I have encountered the following things:

- Freezing mist
- Blazing sunshine
- Torrential rain
- Roadworks
- A bus being towed by a truck
- A shop that only sells booze and one carton of orange juice
- Comedians with brittle smiles but still strong voices
- My venue technicians
- My venue
- My face on posters

I must be in Edinburgh.

I have yet to encounter the following things:

- Audiences
- Reviewers
- Flyers
- Flyerers
- Beer
- Really rubbish food
- More beer
- Comedians with destroyed voices and dreams
- Fruit

That is all still to come. Except perhaps the last one.

Here we go...!

Comedy, music and mud. But mainly mud.

So Glastonbury was a success. I performed some stand up in the Cabaret Marquee alongside Arthur Smith, Simon Munnery and Isy Suttie, and really enjoyed myself. The crowd seemed to enjoy it too so I was glad that I made the effort of getting there. The journey was quite epic, involving taxis, trains, buses and lots and lots of walking through mud carrying a massive rucksack.

Within seconds of arriving at the site, I was very glad I'd invested in some proper Wellington boots and waterproof clothing. It was very wet and muddy, and it was a long walk in the rain from the entrance to the Cabaret area. I came from London with Isy, who had brought a purple suitcase with wheels that soon got bunged up with mud. It was quite funny, although I did end up being the gentleman and carrying it some of the way! It was great to have a companion who had also never been before: it felt like we were going on an adventure together.

Once we had done the gig we were free to wander around and get a sense of the place. The main thing that struck me was just how big the Glastonbury festival is. It really is massive, and can be quite overwhelming particularly if you're not sure where you are going. It's bizarrely difficult to find your way round as well. Despite all of the sign posts the stages are cunningly situated around corners and down slight hills, so they are easy to miss. Even the main Pyramid stage took a bit of finding.

It is deeply smelly, particularly near the toilets, which are predictably horrific. I was so glad to be camping in the Cabaret performers' area, which was really quite civilised in terms of facilities. However either way there is no running water, so the only way to clean your hands is by using wet wipes or antibacterial gel. That means that within a few hours your hands feel strangely sticky and not-quite clean, with dirt trapped under your fingernails. The first thing I did on getting on the train back was thoroughly wash my hands! When a train toilet feels like the height of cleanliness, you know you've been to Glastonbury.

There is a pervasive sense of friendliness at the festival which is definitely endearing. People are very smiley and chatty. There are also lots of people on drugs. Those facts may be connected.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing for me was the noise. Being there is like having tinnitus. You are constantly bombarded with music from every angle, from the stages, stereos on stalls, bands playing in cafes, etc It's hard to distinguish between all of the different sounds, but they are unrelenting. Without earplugs there is no way I'd have been able to sleep at all, as the cacophony carries on all night.

Because I was only there for one evening, I didn't get to see much actual performance. I watched some comedy. Glenn Wool was great, as was Ian Cognito, playing the final set of the night to an almost comatose audience, and yet still imbuing his performance with energy and style. I also caught some of Estelle and Jimmy Cliff, who were both fun, although Estelle did that annoying thing of playing her recent number 1 song (American Boy) and yet getting the crowd to sing most of it for her. Really badly.

I didn't go and see the first night headliners The Kings of Leon, mainly because I had never heard of them. I would have gone to see Jay-Z and the Verve if I'd still been there, but by then I was back in London doing gigs in comedy clubs with walls not made out of canvas. Maybe next year I'll stay for the whole thing, if they'll have me back!

Festival spirit

So Edinburgh suddenly feels very close. Not geographically, obviously, but temporally. And by "Edinburgh" I of course mean "The Edinburgh Festival", or more precisely "The Edinburgh Fringe", or more precisely still "My first solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe". It's a quirk of comedians that we all refer to August as "Edinburgh". I know the city exists outside of the Festival - I've been there many times - but every time I visit not during August I'm faintly surprised and disappointed, as though waking up from an amazing dream to discover a greyer, less colourful reality.

But before Edinburgh comes preview season. Previews are generally a bit of a nightmare. As the comedian you're trying to mould your material into a show, discovering flaws and ideas in front of an audience. It can be exciting but is more often than not just a bit dull and frustrating, at least until the show is basically ready. Getting an audience for a preview is very difficult. Hot weather, football, exams and various other factors conspire to make it the worst time of the year for comedy anyway, and persuading people who don't know you to come and see you for a whole hour is teeth-grindingly hard. I've been flyering at gigs I've been compering, sending out lots of emails and Facebook messages, and still I've already had to cancel two previews because barely anybody turned up. The one preview I've done went well and I'm excited about doing the show: all I need now is for audiences at all of my other previews!

Before Edinburgh I'm also doing two other Festivals, and they couldn't be more different. I'm doing a full hour at the Filey Festival in North Yorkshire, and I'm also doing a ten minute spot in a show with Arthur Smith for Radio 4 at the Glastonbury Festival. I've never been there before. In fact I've never been to a proper music festival before, so I feel a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I keep thinking about muddy fields as far as the eye can see and trench foot. Watching Radiohead in the pouring rain from the comfort of my front room, thinking "Wow, that looks unbelievably awful!" Equally, I don't like the sun very much as I burn very easily.

I'm hoping it's cloudy.

That might be why I've never been to a music festival before.

Oh, and Happy New Year etc...

So I was in a Pound Shop today and noticed that a rolling pin was on sale. But it wasn't labelled "rolling pin". It was labelled: "Movable Stick".

Movable Stick.

Surely every stick is movable. Unless it's really massive and heavy, in which case you'd be hard pushed to call it a "stick". It would be a log. Or a tree.

Who was making that packaging and decided that the description "rolling pin" was too specific? Did they think that it was limiting the possible customer base?

- "Hmm, 'rolling pin' sounds a bit too kitchen-specific. Maybe if we call it something else other people might want to buy it as well. Any ideas?"
- "Wooden cylinder with handles?"
- "Not catchy enough."
- "Pushable plank?"
- "Not quite..."
- "Movable stick?"
- "Yes! That's the one! Now all we have to do is get it into Pound Shops and sell a million and we'll have made a million!"
- "A million movable sticks?"
- "Exactly! You'd better get your lathe out."