11th July to 14th August
Jump to:11th July - Prologue 2001
10th August - "All Bound for Morning Town, Many Miles Away"
11th August - Cat Naps
12th August - Fringe Sunday
13th August - Why Does it Always Rain on Me?
14th August - Where is Everybody?
Here we go again, after a year break. Can't wait. Going up on the overnight coach this time, save a bit of cash and get some sleep!
I've started the diary today as I'm going to Noel James' Edinburgh Preview tomorrow night in London. Nice to see him doing a solo show at Edinburgh after all this time! There's a few other people going up that I know I'm going to enjoy seeing, but more news later.
Coach ticket is bought, accommodation sorted out (bit of a first for me, that, see 98 and 99!). Watch this space for the continuing story...
Left Luggage offices are fantastic - am writing this during my two hour stop at Victoria. Dumped the rucksack so I can get some food without having to lug it around. Uneventful journey so far, thankfully.
Am wondering what the latest gossip is. Last I heard, a comic had woken up on a bench on the Royal Mile with no recollection of how he got there... don't know who that was though.
Noel and Mark's previews were fab - but then I am a fan so I would say that - will catch up with them, and others, when I arrive in Edinburgh.
Cut to 10.30 pm - bedlam at the bus station as no-one is quite sure if they are supposed to be getting on the bus yet or not. We eventually all get on (there are actually two or three coaches - busy this time of year I suppose). Settle down with some mellow jazz the hubby gave me for my birthday and watch the world go by.
Start on making a cloth to wrap my new double-chambered (duet) ocarina in - present from my parents. I collect ocarinas, and this is a special one - technically two stuck together so you can play harmonies with yourself. Have brought it along to get some practice in. Embroidering arcane symbols as fitting for a Priestess (fingering chart actually!)
Try many permutations of seat-sleeping. Grab a few naps. Wake up - Manchester. Nap. Wake up - somewhere in Yorkshire. Certainly gives you a sense of the distance. Nap. Wake up - Berwick.
Interesting place Berwick-upon-Tweed. Had to sign a peace treaty with the USSR on its own. Apparently it always got a special mention in war declarations on account of it changing hands between England and Scotland all the time. When peace was declared over (I think) the Crimea they forgot to mention Berwick, so the town was technically at war with Russia for years until the 60's when someone noticed and they signed a peace treaty.
Nap. Wake up - that looks like Arthur's Seat - better get ready.
Get off the coach. It's nice to be back.
Early
morning - just before 7. I'm not meeting up with Jayne (who I'm staying
with) until 10 so have some time to kill. Walk to Leith, breakfast and pot
of tea on the way. Pass this interesting street art - big metal
pigeons!
Starts to rain so I sit under a tree in
Leith Links for a bit and read. Nice to relax in comfort for a bit.
Also have a nice new raincoat for my birthday from the hubby - perfect for an
Edinburgh summer!
Arrive at Jayne's. Luxurious compared to previous years - I've got somewhere to stay the whole time I'm here, a futon to sleep on and my own key! Write up and upload my diary, plan my evening. Will visit some of my chums I think - no late night for me tonight. Peter Buckley-Hill's freebie gig and then on to Noel James and Company to see how they're doing. Was going to sleep this morning but that'd be a waste! Change clothes and unpack - will go out lunchtime.
Didn't go to PBH in the end - caught up with Noel though. We meet up with someone from the Tron (his venue) who has a 6 month old puppy who wants to sniff everything in sight - we don't mind as he attracts people who we can flyer!
Noel and I are both up here because it's an arts festival and we like to see audiences laughing - not everyone shares our view however and we disagree with someone in the pub over this after the show - lots of people seem to think that this is a big networking opportunity first and foremost, whereas we like to remember that it is an arts festival. I think this comes across in Noel's show though - he'd like to break even doing it, but he does like a room full of people enjoying themselves. I'm the same way - it's the job well done that counts, not the money or the fame, although they are nice! Lots of people can't believe I'll flyer for chips...
Noel has some reviewers and people in - we'll have to see what they say. It was a nice gig - not so many people but some big laughs from them - it's better to have quality than quantity in an audience, I feel. I'd also been to see the play that he's in beforehand - it got an appalling review apparently but I quite enjoyed it. Maybe the critic didn't realise it was supposed to be a farce.
We go to the late night show at Komedia Southside as Noel is to headline. I'm exhausted by this point (read back and try and work out how long I've been awake!) but it's nice to sit for a while - lots of walking in heeled boots today and my feet are killing me.
Walk home like a fool - feet now in absolute agony. Hobble the last few yards into Leith and up the stairs - straight to bed.
Woke
up with cramp in my feet. Otherwise, this has been a good day. Went
down to Fringe Sunday, which is basically a field full of burger vans, a field
full of rides, a pathway full of people selling knick-knacks, and big marquees
showing some of the things you can see at the festival. Didn't know anyone
on at the stand-up tent so did some flyering and bought some things.
Wanted a freebie Ice Tea hat (I love ice tea!) but didn't get one. Saw a
good busker - clockwork doll to music, complete with spinning key!
Go
to the Fringe office to get some show tickets - bump into Noel flyering on the
way. Meet a friend of his from Wales called Jonathan who is working at the
Gilded Balloon, and John and I have a tea while Noel goes off to a meeting about
his play. Buy some more things. Go off to see Peter Buckley-Hill's
show but it's not on today. Should have checked really. Chat with
him anyway. Go to the Gilded Balloon's bar (the one by the Box Office) and
bump into Andy White who I know from a comedy mailing list on the net. We
have a bit of a chat.
Come 7 pm I have to go and flyer the people coming out of Noel's play but lo and behold the heavens have opened and I'm not dressed for it, but luckily the door woman lets me shelter in the doorway until they come out. Flyer them, then back to the Tron to encourage passers-by to come in out of the rain by seeing Noels show - seems to work as he has quite a crowd in and should actually not lose money this evening (quite an unusual event for an Edinburgh show). He is pleased, and puts it down to my flyering efforts which is very sweet of him - I think he's exaggerating a bit but it must be helping so we resolve that my job this year is to get people into his show so that he and Mark can make them laugh. Sounds good to me.
I then go off and see Dyball and Kerr - I was going to review things again this year but there's plenty of reviews around if you want them and I'm having more fun with the diary. In short, however, it's not gag-based laugh a minute stuff but I really enjoyed it - lots of character sketches with wonderful characterisations, including a spoof modern art interview, and a ballet about two football fans having a fight.
Last thing this evening is Pear-Shaped, a late-night comedy showcase run by Brian Damage and Vicky de Lacy (aka Krystal Klear) who run the Pear-Shaped gig in London (billed as London's Second-Worst Comedy Club). They did my gig in Hove a few weeks ago and we had a lovely time so promised to visit. They have a selection of acts on who each get five minutes (against the alarm clock!) which works very well. Bump into Tilly Gregory who is a Brighton act who does my door at my club - she's up with the Semi-Skimmed Comedy Dairy. Half the people in the room seem to be from Sussex. Brian asks me if I'm doing a spot! I don't do comedy myself... but I do have my ocarina with me in the flat so I jokingly offer to play it one night... what have I got myself into now!!!
Don't think I'm going to climb Arthur's Seat today - firstly it looks like rain and secondly I only have slip-on trainers and a pair of high-heeled boots. Bought some comfy walking-boot type sandals in an outdoor shop. Am just walking up The Mound when the torrential downpour starts. Happy birthday to me...
Manage to shift some flyers, then go down to see Peter Buckley-Hill's solo show - not only is it funny it is also free to get in, so highly recommended for those suffering from the commercial side of the Fringe. Bought one of his T-shirts as they're cool - his website and dodo logo on the front, quite small, and on the back are two large arrows, one pointing to the elbow saying "arse", and you can probably guess the second one. I've actually seen someone else walking around in one but didn't know it was a Buckers shirt. Apparently they sold very well at the Cambridge Folk Festival.
Flyer for Noel's gig in the rain which seems to get a sympathy vote as he has his largest audience yet. Hard work but they enjoy it. They seem to be missing a lot of the subtle ones though, which is a shame and Noel asks me a lot of questions along the lines of "how do you think (gag X) went", "why didn't they laugh at (gag Y)". This is why he has so many funny jokes I think - he actually works on their structure constantly. He has had a review which was okay but said he "lacked direction" apparently (I haven't read it) but I think he has a very structured set, just some of it is mobile and his style appears quite erratic to the untrained eye. I think so, anyway.
People do ask me how I can watch people's shows over and over again. Depends on the show - but with a well-crafted set you stop listening to the jokes and start to appreciate the technical side, delivery, timing, intonation, use of the stage etc. I studied British Sign Language and there's a lot in that about how to show that two people are speaking - facing a different way, looking up or down. Spot Noel doing this in his Rene Descartes bit. Lots of people think comedy is just standing up and chatting, but once you look further in you spot that good acting skills are necessary too.
Go out to dinner afterwards for my birthday - lots of people doing shows or working or at the BBC New Act Awards thing so it's a small but perfectly-formed little soiree, Noel, his mate Jonathan and later on Joe, who is Noel's landlord in Edinburgh. Noel knows a nice Italian so we go off in a taxi to find that - turns out to be the same one I went to in 1999 with Steve Best and Rainer Hersch. Been done up since then. Very nice food though. It's in Hanover Street, called Alfresco I think. Down some stairs.
We then move on to Waverley station as Noel is meeting a friend who is visiting - Sandra from Bristol who I've met before at one of his gigs. She's got a very heavy bag, which the men insist on carrying (quite right too!) which she confesses to me is mainly make-up...
We go to the Tron again, as Noel is headlining their late-night showcase. He has a cracking gig - made even funnier as during his set one of the braces holding his trousers up comes adrift and is dangling down the front of his trousers. I slowly realise that he doesn't know this, and dissolve into fits of hysterics - to which Noel retorts that I'm laughing in the wrong places - I'm in the middle of the audience, you see. Can't resist it - heckle back - "Nice braces, mate". He looks down, and for a split second the on-stage persona falters while he changes a mental gear. He then "adjusts his dress" and says something funny, I don't remember what as I was weeping with laughter at the time. He spends the rest of the gig trying to surreptitiously keep his trousers up.
14th August - Where is Everybody?
Didn't
do much today. Flyered. Weather much nicer though. Met a bloke
from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School with a rat in a cage - very cute
rat. I had hamsters and mice myself when I was younger. He attracts
clumps of animal lovers who all want to stroke his rat (I think it was called
Wilhelm). He certainly seems to be shifting a lot of flyers. Perhaps
I should get a rat.
Also
take a picture of these three Royal Bank of Scotland "Rubbish
Busters", who are watching some street entertainment in between picking up
all the dropped flyers. I just liked the artistic arrangement of their
shoulders, I think.
Start looking for familiar faces. Cafe Royal crowd are having their day off I think as none of them are flyering today. Come 5 pm I'm going a bit spare as I'm bored of this. Bump into Mark Felgate though who is always a tonic when you're feeling a bit down. We go to Chocolate Soup in Hunter Close, very decadent hot chocolate cafe. Bit of flyering before the gig. Not many people in though. I think a lot of shows are not on today so perhaps people are staying at home in bed for a change.
Have to rush off from there as I'm going to see Ross Noble. Very funny as ever - you can never tell which bits are material and which bits are ad-libbed with him. Pleasance One extremely hot and stuffy though.
Wander round town for a while, and have some chips. Hang out at the Gilded Saloon. Bump into Suzanne Fraser (Scots act, is in Noel's play and supported one of his Brighton Fringe shows so I've met her a couple of times). She's trying to sell some tickets to another show she now can't go to but I've already got one for the Giant Pineapple Boys. Am reading the reviews on the walls of the Studio corridor when a grinning face looms into my peripheral vision. Noel loves to make startling entrances! He's here with Sandra and Jonathan. They knew I was coming and came along too, it seems.
The show is a series of little Hollywood set pieces - the silent movie is great and I love the impressions - very good Chewbacca and Tie Fighter voices in a well observed Star Wars skit, a very funny Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro. I liked bits of it but I prefer more gag-based comedy. Sandra thought it was great. Don't know what Noel thought - comics are always hard to read as they get a bit de-sensitized I think.
Sandra tells me that she and Noel are keen to do Arthur's Seat so first bit of decent weather we're getting a picnic and going up. Arthur Smith always used to take punters up but I don't think he's here this year.