Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Well...where do I start? I've not long woken up from a 14 hour sleep, I didn't think I had the ability to do that, but the Edinburgh Fringe has done that to me. In a good way. We were only up there for eight days, but the fringe is a special place - as an audience member it's probably the only place to be in August, the festival itself is the greatest show on earth and within it contains lots of other little greatest shows on earth. As a performer/writer/anybody part of a show, it is all of those things with an added emotional rollercoaster of magical moments and periods of great frustration, all concluding in a week which you weren't quite sure worked for you or not but can't wait to do again.

Arriving in cloudy Edinburgh on Sunday morning (Izzy and myself stayed in a Travel Lodge in Newcastle the night before to make the long drive slightly more comfortable, Grace and Michelle travelled separately by train) we checked into our lovely, if small, accommodation and headed over to our venue. I really like Sweet Venues, they are under different management now to when I was last with them (with a show called The Knowledge Of Beauty all of those years ago...I feel old) and it has a more of a family vibe to it all now, JD the boss is a very organised and friendly chap who made us feel very welcome, and the spaces themselves are a joy to perform in - perfect size, with comfortable seating for the audience, the sound quality is good, the stage size offers enough space to perform the pieces as intended whilst still feeling intimate. I'm by no means an experienced performer, but I felt instantly at home on that stage. We went for late drinks to catch up with friends, most of whom who are involved in other shows, then I got a bit touchy and snappy because I wanted to go home and sleep before an early morning tech on the Monday and it was getting late. Izzy and Michelle found me acting touchy rather funny, as they've never seen touchy Paul before. I wasn't functioning properly the next morning, having a tech at 9am having slept quite badly on the floor in the flat the night before didn't put me in the best of mindsets but it went smoothly enough and I was fine after a Red Bull and packet of Monster Munch. The Greatest Goal tech, which was just after, served as a dress rehearsal for Grace too, but looked great. A couple hours later, Greatest Goal premiered in front of a modest audience, but went down well, wasn't aware that Grace was going to do this in a Welsh accent (I hadn't been at the rehearsals and Michelle (the director) and her decided on this) and it was brilliant, injected more charm into the whole of the second half of the show. After briefly flyering the Royal Mile in my pyjamas (the fringe is probably the only place where you can go out into the streets dressed in your jim-jams and nobody bats and eyelid) it was the first Edinburgh performance of the new Oscar Pike show. We had friends in, my sister and her boyfriend were in, the press were in...whilst by far not the tightest it's been, it had plenty of energy and no major cock-ups, people laughed when they were supposed to, we were happy enough so got drunk to celebrate this fact.

There has been much said in the media about the demise of the fringe this year. Okay, demise is a bit strong, but it's struggled a bit. Numbers have been down, even established acts like Richard Herring haven't been selling out, which is unthinkable. As usual there are a couple of 'buzz' acts that you can't get tickets for no matter how hard you've tried - David Trent (a friend of mine), Pappy's, Daniel Kitson - but quite a few of  the bigger acts were suffering a bit for audiences. Many have theories on why this is - somebody said to me at the end of run party on Sunday evening that it was because the fringe relies a lot on international visitors and, because of the Olympics, flights into the UK were so much more expensive so that put them off. A few people believe it's simply because it's been a busy summer for Great Britian - all the sport, how much money, and leave, and energy do people have? Alan our soundman extraordinaire believes it's deeper than a one-year blip and that the model of the whole fringe is changing, and going back to basics. With about 40% of the fringe being free, why would people pay to see a show? There really is much to be said either way about that, he has a point though - there's still a recession, people don't have money at the end of the day.

It was clear very early on that both of our shows were going to struggle, because, probably of all of the reasons above combined, but also because (as Izzy pointed out) we didn't really have a marketing strategy. No 'really' about it, really. Gone are the days when flyering with a little charm on the Royal Mile was enough to convince people to come to your shows. The flyering didn't work at all this year - maybe I'm just not charming any more. Felt like we were the only people without a review on our flyers because we didn't have one to put on there (the danger of only doing a limited run, and also because we didn't get any reviewers in to the previews because we were so unsure about the quality of production at the time so didn't invite any press). We had three reviewers in for Oscar Pike during the week - the one that came on the first performance (he laughed a lot and I'm confident about this one - review hasn't emerged anywhere yet though), one that came on the second performance which was a TERRIBLE DAY where the reviewer was one of only two people in the audience (the other being our friend Mary who had already seen the show in Cambridge but still found it in her to laugh at the same jokes again, top lady) and it was the worst we've ever performed the play - we had been working so hard to flyer and get the numbers up that we were knackered before the play even started...also, it's really hard to say monologues to the audience about 'the lady league' and other blokey things when the audience is made up of two women - at one point I said a whole monologue to an empty chair. Annoyingly, that's the only review that has been published so far, it wasn't the nicest but said some nice-ish things about the piece - if I was a reviewer that day I would have ripped us apart. We also had a journalist in for the fourth performance, he laughed a lot and it was a good day, but again - nothing has been printed yet, maybe it'll be out there soon. One reviewer was scheduled for Greatest Goal, but never turned up, which was a shame because it was mid-run and Grace was really hitting her stride by then.

Wednesday felt like a new low for me as a fringe producer...that day's performance of Oscar Pike was cancelled because we hadn't sold a single ticket. And that was despite my meeting the night before with the lovely Lynne - marketing manager at Sweet, who let me invent any offer I wanted to get people in. That day we decided to go half price and flyered our amazing offer like crazy, but nothing. Greatest Goal did go ahead earlier that day to three people, all of whom loved it, but for Oscar - nothing. The most painful thing about this is knowing that you've not sold any tickets but having to put up the set and be in costume just in case somebody decides to turn up at the last minute. They didn't, so I'm sat in an empty venue, in my pyjamas, feeling like a loser, being called "grumpy pants" by the others. I wanted to go back to the flat to sulk and watch TV, but the others wouldn't let me as it's Grace's birthday and besides - there wasn't a TV in the flat anyway. In six years at the fringe, this was a first. It won't happen again. I had cheered up later in the evening, we celebrated Grace's new age by seeing Piff The Magic Dragon (one the funniest things I have ever seen at the fringe - choking with laughter) and Andrew Lawrence, and drinking in the Pleasence courtyard until the early hours. We spent a lot of time in the Pleasence courtyard - it's my favourite place at the fringe, vibrant, colourful, lots of space, and a good place to spot the odd celebrity (one night we saw Simon Amstell, Tim Vine and Richard Bacon all loitering, and I got introduced to comedian Nick Helme by David Trent at the bar but foolishly didn't know who he was - the next morning Izzy was telling me what a fan of his she is and I felt a bit daft).

Thankfully the rest of the performances of Oscar did happen - in fact the next day we EIGHT people in, yeah, get us. That was because we had the show for sale in the Half Price Hut though I think. Greatest Goal ticked over nicely with small audiences but Grace knew exactly how to handle them completely, such a good actress. She deserved a bigger audience for her performance though, she deserved some kind of recognition for this, as does Michelle for directing it so well - monologues can be boring, they made them lovely and interesting to watch. In the penultimate performance of Oscar there was five people in, one of which was my ex-girlfriend. Awkward! It was pointed out to us by someone at the venue that everyone who came out of both shows during the week were smiling/still laughing, and looked like they had really enjoyed the productions. Not being arrogant or anything, but that's because these shows are good, a lot of time and care had gone into them. But as I've already touched on earlier in this post, having a good show isn't enough these days - but we'll learn from this. Our marketing strategy was flawed this year. Well, we didn't have one. Next year we'll have one. Did I just say we're doing another show next year? Hhhhmmm, let's have a think about this.

The final Oscar was beautifully surreal - twenty people in, quite a few of them children...Oscar isn't a kids show, it has the words 'fuck' and 'wanker' in it quite a lot. 'Fuck' was replaced by either strained facial expressions to express my frustration or 'sod' when it came to 'fuck off'. 'Wanker' was replaced by 'prat' - which apparently is the most hilarious word in the world if you're under 10. Ironically, Oscar Pike's fringe farewell went down a storm, maybe family-friendly is the way forward? Yeah, right! Got away with it anyway, and nice to end on a high, we needed to, what with an eight hour car drive home the next day. At the Sweet end of fringe party/awards ceremony, which was really lovely and so nice to chat and drink with other performers, we won an award: The Realism Award For Company Name Most Frequently Used In Real Life. Realism for our company name (Get A Real Job Productions) in what was a pretty surreal fringe.

You know, staying in that small flat, I'm amazed Izzy and Grace didn't kill me - I think I may have been difficult to work with last week, I was either ratty/grumpy when things weren't going to plan ("this pointless, I'm not doing the fringe again...") or over-enthusiastic ("if we flyer lots tomorrow we can sell out and be rich and famous...") but they didn't, which demonstrates what lovely people they are. And the late night lectures/advice (they were lectures) about how to find a new girlfriend were appreciated, even if it did feel like I was being told off a bit (a lot). They're both really lovely, as is Michelle, and Alan our soundman is a dude and friend who I need to drink beer with more often.

And beyond the stress and excitement of our own shows there was of course hundreds and hundreds of other shows to see, and we saw lots in between flyering/our own productions/drinking lots, Piff The Magic Dragon topped my favourites list for the year (you should go and see this show, wherever it is and wherever you are) with Tim Key a close second with 'Masterslut' - a great, surreal show that is difficult to explain but I can't wait to see it again in Cambridge soon. I somehow ended up playing second percussion for comedian Rob Deering during his show, and Dead Cat Bounce, Rom Com Con and The Beta Males were also really great. There was also a few stinkers, but it's just not nice to list them because there's every chance there's someone else somewhere like me blogging about the fringe and I wouldn't want them to mention our shows in such a light. But...there was one evening that was totally dreadful - it was a benefit night, and was supposed to have a selection of top comedians performing. Only one of them had turned up, and sat awkwardly in the little venue we watched him explain that he was stretching this out (there wasn't even a host), we wanted to like him and go along with it but the material wasn't working - he was trying so hard, but it just wasn't. As the evening progressed and no other act turned up he started to lose the plot, and eventually the whole audience (about twenty people) were forced onto the stage to see what it's like under the lights, not allowed to sit down until we laugh, and the second comedian (who had just turned up) had to start his act sat in the empty audience. Eventually, we were freed from this weird comedy hostage situation and 'allowed' to sit down, but the second comedian was as dreadful as the first and small group by small group of people everybody ran out. Outside it was like the fire bell had just gone off - the audience in hysterics (for the first time in about 40 minutes) about how bad that was, and relieved we had managed to escape that monstrosity. It kind of all adds to the fringe experience, I guess.

Although having a 'quiet' year, the Edinburgh Fringe is the most magical place on the planet, on arrival at the top of the Royal Mile all you have to do is look down at the thousands of people, whether they be potential audience members or more than likely performers desperately wanting to entertain you. Being entertained is one of life's treats, laughing is healthy and I did a lot of that last week. We made a couple mistakes at the fringe with the planning of our shows, but equally, in retrospect, we have every right to be very proud of ourselves. Good work, team.

So, what next? Well, it's Lodestar this weekend - the final hurrah for Greatest Goal and Oscar, and there I shall be premiering a new show I'm writing for fantastic blues band called The Outlines. I should have probably been working on the script rather than spending so much time on this blog post but hey - there's still time to do a good job of it. After that I'm straight into the studio to record a Christmas album with some lovely and talented people, and some gigs and stuff, some nice gigs coming up. I should really get my novel out there too, finally, now I've got my head around this whole Kindle thing (and the ultra-arty Cara Pedder is designing me a cover), and there's talk of a radio sitcom before the Christmas show. Lots of ideas, too many ideas, as always. Whatever they may be though there's nobody I would want to work more on them with than Izzy, okay so she snaps a bit when she hasn't eaten (as I discovered), but she's annoyingly talented, has got a genuine eye for what works and what doesn't as well as fast becoming one of my best friends in the whole world, great things can be achieved. I'm not sure if she agrees, but I'll give her a few weeks of space and then start sending scripts over.

Edinburgh Fringe 2012 - done. Stressfully. Edinburgh Fringe 2013? I've had time to think about it, of course we bloody will.