Edinburgh Fringe 2013

Yesterday I found myself back home, the comfort of home, and an actual bed, and being told that I should actually relax at some point after the eight hour car drive home. But I can't relax; I'm on my laptop working on new shows, I'm buzzing, I've just had the most energy-draining three weeks of my life yet I feel more awake then ever. Yep, that'll be the fringe, then.

Three weeks and one day ago, actress Hind Shubber and myself had just arrived at the Edinburgh Fringe. The drive up was stressful because we had to be there by 2pm to pick up the keys to our accommodation, made even more stressful by the fact that Edinburgh is a frankly ridiculous city to drive around at the best of times, let alone during the madness of the festival. Eventually, after finding our accommodation, dropping our many things off and dumping my car somewhere in Leith for the best part of a month, we walked back into town and just looked down the Royal Mile. At the thousands of people either trying to get through without being smothered in flyers or just revelling in the glory of it all, at the street performances delighting the passers by with such polished acts you wonder why they're not actually making much money out of this, or the desperate performers trying to convince anyone and everyone that their flyer features details of a show you just have to see. The latter would be me, pretty much every day for three weeks. These three shows at the fringe are my eighth, ninth and tenth productions, I know how it works, yet every year I arrive at the festival and just stand in awe - the sheer beauty of the chaos. Then, on that Saturday evening, reality hit home; tomorrow my solo show is to open - my debut performance as a solo artist. I couldn't help but feel I could have planned this better, a feeling further enhanced by my dreadful performance of it in front of Hind in the flat that Saturday evening - she sat, bless her, all polite, but it was clear it was a bit of a mess.

Our other two Edinburgh shows were, 'Some Plays By Paul Richards' - which we (Hind and myself) had been performing for a while now, tours and everything, so nothing to worry about there, and 'Redundancy Club' which I had written for myself and Izzy Rees - a show with so many potential banana skins it should have caused concern, but equally one which worked quite well in the previews so I had decided to not worry about it.

The solo show was a bit of a last minute thing, I accepted the offer and wrote the show purely to impress a girl (who, it seems, wasn't impressed after all) and the worst thing of all? I was stuck with it for a full run. A show which scared the hell out of me, but having to do it for three weeks. In the end of course, this would work in my favour; the first couple of performances of, 'Paul Richards: Things Could Be Marvellous', were nothing short of horrible - yet the audience generally seemed to enjoy it, as if this scruffy, mumbling lanky man who occasionally calls his Tesco value boombox a wanker in between showing us drawings of cartoon women and handing us wordsearches featuring the word, 'FLAPJACK' 15 times is all part of some great piece of alternative comedy. It's not; I just didn't have a clue what I was going, hitting the 40 minute mark in the show felt like a victory because I knew I could justify it as an actual show. True, there were even some points later in the run where I completely lost the plot, like the time I got angry and just started kicking things over (the audience love all that stuff), and the time I performed the show to just two people - neither of whom actually spoke a word of English. But by the end of the run I was even getting a bit cocky with the whole thing, it's amazing what three weeks can do, isn't it? People seemed to really like it, somebody even sent me a personal review on Facebook of what they enjoyed about it. Crazy.

Our venue for all three shows wasn't without it's problems; it caught fire on the first day, flooded twice, had a sewerage problem. And my first impressions of it were that it was far too big for us - 80 capacity, which is about double what we're used to dealing with, but secretly I quite enjoyed the idea of being in a big venue despite the realisation that filling it was never going to happen, nowhere near it. Due to the fire, things were delayed by a day, but eventually things started moving. 'Some Plays...' was a bit slow at first, which was alarming considering how many times we've done this show, but by the middle of week one we were absolutely flying - aided by a wonderful review by Australian website, Heckler, which I'm still smiling about now. Alongside our regular slot, we were also invited to perform an extract from it at The Sweet Release cabaret night, which was enormous fun. Hind is a joy to work with, I know I've said that before but that makes it even more brilliant that I'm still saying it, we've been in each others pockets a lot this year and are still making plans for new shows, it's just a really easy working relationship we've accidently happened upon. I'll be writing shows for this lady for years, I reckon. 'Redundancy Club' features Izzy and myself, but also relies heavily on carefully plotted sounds, provided by our regular techie, Alan. The problem with this is that for it to work we have to be pretty much 'on' the script or else it would throw Alan completely. I was a bit rubbish with this one at times, Izzy's great at learning lines because she's a proper actress, but I'm all over the place. Alan saved us several times, and it never detracted from the energy of the performances, if anything my somewhat casual approach to the dialogue kept everyone on their toes - not sure if they'd agree with that though. Saying that, the three of us have been working together for years and we're a tight team, there's an understanding there, a lovely one it is too. For some reason, unlike the other two shows, we never had a problem getting people in for, 'Redundancy Club' - maybe it's because the blurb in the programme is more appealing, or the fact that Izzy is just better at handing out flyers than the rest of us? She's a people person. I'm not; I'm an awkward person.

That's the thing about the fringe, see. It's so much more than just producing the shows...The Royal Mile is a competitive place, you have to sell your show. I'm no salesman, and often found myself drifting, thinking about future shows, or just watching the street cabaret and having thoughts about giving silent comedy a go myself. Nah, I'm far too chatty. The fringe is hard work; you wake up, you flyer, you do a show, you flyer, you do a show, you see other shows, you get drunk. Every night for three weeks. My body probably deserves a break, but my mind is more excited than ever. Perhaps this excitement really comes from seeing other shows - I saw a lot of good stuff this year...my top five (in order) were: Tom Wrigglesworth, The Horn Section (I enjoyed this so much I saw it three times, and those tickets ain't cheap), Max & Ivan, The Wrestling, Piff The Magic Dragon (saw this twice, the first time I got dragged up on stage and he tried to make me lick a goldfish). Special mentions should also go to Nick Helm, Gareth Morinon, BBC 4 Extra Live Recording, Late Night Gimp Fight, The Ruby Darlings (who were our venue mates, great show and lovely people to hang out with too) and of course the legendary Peter Buckley-Hill - a man to whom we owe everything, for without him we wouldn't have a venue. PBH is a true legend who has changed the way the fringe works for the better, and his show was also pretty fantastic too.

We found ourselves hanging out in The Banshee Labyrinth a lot this year - great beer and awesome food, and as always we spent more time than anyone should at the Pleasance Courtyard...but that place does define the vibrancy of the fringe for me. We didn't fall out at all during the festival, maybe it's because I only work with wonderful people who are patient enough to put up with my over enthusiastic, often intense ways, which must be annoying. Or maybe it's just because Hind, Izzy and Alan are the best people you could ever work with. Yep, that'll be it.

28 performances and a guest slot later, I'm back home trying to put into words what the Edinburgh Fringe actually means to me. I remember years ago, at my first ever fringe with a production called, 'Growing Up With Martin', one of my best mates, Rob said to me that he predicts I'll be one of those crazy people who keeps going back to the fringe, every year. I laughed it off, and said if I ever get to ten shows, I'll stop there. This year I hit ten shows. To be honest, I'm just hitting my stride...looking forward to Edinburgh 2014 already; next year I'll storm it.