My time at the lunatic Fringe is nearly over. Here are some of the things I’ve learned.
As you read this, I’m spending my last few days at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009. Unless you’re reading this later on in September, in which case I’m home. Put the kettle on, would you? I’ve been performing a show in Edinburgh for the full month of August. For those of you who haven’t been, I can tell you it’s the largest arts festival in the world, and it’s bloody huge. Thousands of shows go on here every day, which means that every day thousands of audiences have to be assembled from a pool of picky locals and tourists. The pressure is on.
It’s a sensory overload, visually and aurally. All over town, street performers, comedians, theatre groups, musicians and dancers fight for punters’ attention – and the more outrageous they are, the better. Yesterday, a bunch of American high-school students performed an abridged hip-hop dance version of Macbeth right beside where I was giving out flyers for my show. How could I compete?
When preparing for the Edinburgh Fringe, you have to submit the title of your show well in advance. For most of us procrastinating comedians, we submit that title before we have the majority of the show written. So we are extremely lucky if the title of the show bears any resemblance to the content of the show by the time the festival actually comes round.
I called my show Trouble, and luckily enough that’s still relevant to what I’m talking about. However, there’s one interpretation of the title I hadn’t considered. I’m slightly worried that people who see the poster – which has a picture of me, my name and the word ‘Trouble’ above it – will read it differently than I intended. I’m worried that they will think I think I’m ‘Trouble.’
Somebody who calls herself ‘Trouble’ is pretty pathetic to me. That word suggests a treacherous wench who lies and manipulates for her own lurid ends, a homewrecker – an Angelina Jolie. I swear I’m not like that. In fact, I abhor such women. Also, I can’t think of anything worse than a woman who would be self-aware enough to say such a thing about herself, and not only refuse to do anything to change it, but worse, put posters of herself about up around town to advertise the fact.
I’m not a femme fatale, some Venus Flytrap of a woman who will weave a poisonous web around a bloke and then leave him to rot in his own pain. I’m not the kind of girl that blokes write fatalistic songs about. I’m no man-eater; no boys need to watch out that I’ll chew them up. Nor indeed am I a maniac, a maniac on the floor. I’m not dancing like I never did before. I have only a few well-rehearsed dance moves and I depend heavily upon them.
It’s my third year over here at the Fringe. The first two left me exhausted and confused. This year I’m starting to see where the challenges are and how best to meet them. You see, it’s all about stamina and self-preservation. Conserve your energy so it will last you a whole month. That means taking your multi-vitamins, wearing appropriate raingear, speaking quietly to conserve your voice and getting enough sleep. It means not going on the tear and, for me, it means avoiding any personal dramas. (I don’t know why but gossip – even though it gives me an immediate kick – really saps my energy.)
Stars are the currency over here, and getting a good review can really help to sell your show. A five-star review will create a buzz and maybe lead to bigger audiences and better work prospects for the future. But golly, does a bad review cut you deep... It’s like a knife slicing through your flesh and then continuing on into your soul for good measure. I would love to be able to seperate Eleanor the person from Eleanor the performer so I wouldn’t take these things so much to heart, but no success so far.
So I’m taking the decision this year to abstain from the reading of all print media (old-fashioned and online), and I’m skipping TV and radio too. There’s a lot of media outlets covering Edinburgh, so that’s not easy. But if I get a good review, I don’t need to know about it, and if I get a bad one, then I definitely don’t.
Here I am, making the Fringe Festival sound like a prison sentence. If I were you, I’d be asking, “Why the hell would you do it then?” Well, it’s certainly a challenge but there are also moments of extreme joy. I’ll describe one for you.
In 2007, I went along to see one of the highest-profile shows of the festival. It was quite an expensive affair and tickets were dear at nearly £20. The comedian, a previous Perrier Award winner, performed an hour of what, in my opinion, was slick, cynical, gimmicky standup with a few lame attempts at showing vulnerability. The audience loved it, but all the way through, my heart was sinking. Is this what a successful Fringe show is, I wondered: a soulless display, without any attempt to capture the human condition? It seemed like it was designed by Apple rather than a person. (I’d tell you who the comedian in question was, but I’ve sworn off gossip, remember?)
Anyway, I left that show disappointed and made my way to another. This one was a far cry from the first. In the tiny backroom of a pub, there were ten people in the audience, six of whom I knew. A skinny, long-haired man dressed only in underpants, a tie and some clown makeup entered the stage nervously and spent the next hour playing protest songs on various 1980s electronic gadgets. We sang along where we could, and cheered him on when technical problems struck. Which they did.
Still, a version of Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ played almost correctly (he played a semitone off-key) made us love him even more. This show was not polished, it was not clever, but it was a triumph. It celebrated failure. Call me a romantic, but I’ll be forever grateful to that man. He goes by the name of Doktor CocaColaMcDonalds.
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