Day 21 - Vertebral subluxation

The wheel has turned.

Most of this Fringe people I know have grumbles and mumbled of bad audiences and small numbers. Both 3 Man Roast and LOTWAA have been a delight from start to finish.

It seems now the karmic overdraft we have amassed has paid off and both shows are being watched by the unappreciative and drunk.

Piffle frankly.

Yesterday, I finally saw Paul Foot's show Still Life. As anybody will be able to tell you he's my favourite live act on gthe circuit. (Simon Munnery is my favourite comedian full stop but I prefer watching Paul). His shows are bizarre, obtuse creations so far removed from comedy clubs and the nonsense Outline Magazine peddles on their "funny" page as to be a seperate genre. Its like being forced to watch musical theatre for a year and realising that what everybody thinks theatre is then going to watch the RSC do Ibsen.

The show was an exquisite nonsense and I think he is two years away from his Magnus Opus.

Hopefully I can temp him back to Norwich at some point.

Day 20 - Hongcheng Magic Liquid Incident

Today was the dread of all days. The final Monday. However, it was suprisingly event free.

3 Man Roast was excellent and I do believe I finally relaxed onstage. LOTWAA was pretty awful with a diffident, uninterested and tiny crowd. One couple told us they had just walked out of their two previous shows and proceeded to walk out of ours. I was wondering if that was there hobby. Like their own audience hokey-cokey.

Once again it struck me I must get at least 10mins of just jokes in my set. I have always had problems writing "JOKES" as personally I don't enjoy listening to jokes very much. Jimmy Carr and Milton Jones tend to leave me cold. I tend to prefer the acts whose sets are built on wit more than anything.

I ran into John Osbourne's whos show John Peel's Shed is almost the talk of the Fringe. Then I went to see John Kearn's Dinner Party with John Kearns and Pat Cahill.

This was probably the most enjoyable peice of nonsense I had seen this Fringe and I highly recommend it

This is a short blog as I need a nap

Toodles

Day 19 - Manatee of Helena

Sunday is the day of rest.

They say no rest for the wicked.

Yesterday was Sunday and apparently I have done something dreadful as it was day which strained even my delicate constitution dear reader.

I had to get up at 11am to find my Flat with an Omnidirectional Shower was now a  Flat with an Omnidirectional Shower and No Hot Water as the boiler had gone for a Burton.

So once icecold wash later I felt awful and set up for the day in the worst way possible.

3 Man Roast was not running today. I have been told this is due to the venue showing sport. I don't believe this and think the predatory lotharios Alex and Will are too busy seducing their respective prey to bother with a show, dear reader.

Instead I went off and performed at Miss London's Pick of the Fringe. I show I enjoyed thoroughly although none of the others seemed to.

The venue was a lofty church set within the bowels of Edinburgh's 4D geography and, as massive vaulted churchs are the standard performance space in Norwich. I was unfazed by it. But a varied show by all concerned.

After some vigorous sitting I went to LOTWAA where I preceeded to put in the best onstage performance of my life.

I frankly could have basted in self-satrisfaction all night but instead went to the Gilded Balloon to congratulate the originator of Norwich stand-up gigs, Pat Cahill, on his Amused Moose victory and then discovered the Wine Room tech was an old uni friend of mine.

Then I went to sleep.

So there

Love you all. Try the fish. Goodbye

Day 18 - Radioactive Quackery

After the horror of the previous days show today was much nicer all around

3 Man Roast was excellent with a crowd on page from the beginning and a healthy bucket at the end. It may be considered crass to measure these things by monetary worth but you cannot eat art.

As a rule you can tell 3 Man Roast has gone well if it has been enjoyed by groups of hetrosexual men (know taxonomically as Homo Sapien Laddus, Latin for Wise Man birthed by Alan Ladd). This is not due to outrageous references to homosexuality and havig better things to do than watch sport but rather some of the jokes require you having read something.

Ever.

I had intended to watch a free show or two but that fell by the wayside as I went back to my Flat with its Omnidirectional Shower and had a doze. All I need to do is drink tea and I am prectically geriatric.

LOTWAA was excellent with a small but appreciative audience who were VERY generous in the bucket.

I then went to see Late and Free at Espionage. Late and Free is the Free Festival's version of Late N'Live and I shall be controversial here. I think it is the better of the two of them.

I am one of the few new stand-ups up here who went to Late N'Live in the old Gilded Ballon (before it moved to the Teviot). Late and Free was closer in spirit to it than the current Late N'Live which reminds me of a Disney version of itself.

At Late and Free anybody can get on, the acts were inconsistant and dicking about backstage with an audience crackling with energy. Mark Simmons and Damien Kingsley did an excellent job with the show and I am disappointed I have never gone down earlier.

Afterwards, I met an American.

She was unpleasant.

Marvellous

Day 17 - Aspartame Controversy

Day 17 was the day of fatigue. The day of fire and destruction. The day of sadness and the day of joy.

I had come in from "the socialising" to my flat with its omnidirectional shower at an hour familiar only to those trying to avoid conversation with the horror of the night before.

I had no hours sleep then went off to do 3 Man Roast.

The show went surprisingly well for me although some of the audience walked out. We were glad they did. I had noticed they were doing shots before the show and we are not a show catering to the laddish demographic. I think 3 Man Roast is best enjoyed sober with access to wikipedia for references and they clearly wanted to us to reinforce their prejudices while validating that drinking so much they vomit there own anus was a lifestyle choice.

At this point I should have returned to my flat with its omnidirectional shower and slept

I should have done this.

Instead I wandered about a little and ran into doyens of the Norwich Cabaret scene Joe and Lucy who were up for a while. As the show was about to go up and after hugging Bob Slayer we went to watch Frank Sanazi.

The premise is Hitler as Rat Pack singer. Its a one joke Cabaret act beautifully well thought through and realised. Hopefully the combined might of Headless, No Strings and Salt Box will be able to entice him to Norwich soon. He played Norwich once before at Bonanafana Social Club to a mixed reaction. I am tempted to say this was the wrong demographic for him. Plug him into Norwich's alt/metal scene and I think we are onto a winner.

We saw him in The Hive on Edinburgh's

Niddry Street

. A vast, dank bunker which fitted the act. We were lamenting Norwich lack of basements and medium sized venues. Which is a common gripe of mine.

Then I did my evening show LOTWAA and if you were at the show I would like to apologise. I was so tired by this point I could barely focus my vision and turned in a performance that wasn’t so my dialled in as performed on a dial-up internet connection where all the data kept getting corrupted and important bits missed out and probably it was better to leave it and come back at a better time.

After this horror show I slinked off to the Pear Tree for the birthday party of a man I have never spoken to and then went home early to birch my balls in penitence.

Day 15 & 16 - Extropianism

As I was unable to access a computer yesterday due to needing a little nap today is a double post.

I think time is compressed in Edinburgh. It’s a year of gigging in a month both physically and emotionally all compressed into 30 days. It the comedy circuit as zip file. Because of this I'm not exactly sure which day some of these incidents occurred in so this post will take the holistic view of it all.

3 Man Roast has been uniformly lovely and LOTWAA has been less consistent.

There seems to be a pattern where Laurence Tuck and I do well and Dan Adams not or vice versa. On one of the days was the first time I thought we did uniformly well. As LOTWAA has a later slot the audiences can be a little friskier than with 3 Man Roast. The learning curve is excellent as an upshot of this.

I have long shied away from doing any material about coming from Norfolk as its all mostly hack nonsense (Give me 6) peddled out by even the best comedians. However, after doing about 2 and half hours of thinking with a premise which started off with a joke about Northern Ireland I suddenly came up with an original quip which inverted the whole thing. I have trotted this out in front of the disparate demographics of Edinburgh audiences and it appears to be working almost universally.

Thusly I shall be trotting it out on the circuit from September onwards.

3 Man Roast picked up a 4* review from Whatsonstage.com with the lovely sign off note

                         "These boys are definitely ready to graduate to a larger room."


I also ran into fellow Norwich resident John Osbourne's whose show John Peel's Shed has been picking up 5* reviews across the board. 

Most evenings have ended tomorrow morning and however much Diet Coke I am consuming I have yet to become a more confident and independent young woman.

Day 14 - Phrenology

As I had become overexcited by The Wrestling the previous night I had very little sleep today as I had to go along for a meeting at 9am

This is a perfectly rational time for most of humanity but as the Fringe takes place in its own time zone this is like having a meeting a midnight.

I am convinced that because everything at the Fringe takes place 7 hours behind everything else for the month of August Edinburgh moves into the same time zone as Mumbai. The reason everybody involved has such a hard time readjusting in September is everybody gets jetlag from travelling south.

The meeting went fine and then I put in my worst performance at 3 Man Roast of the run so far. Getting material out of my mouth was like swimming through porridge and the tiredness had set my IBS off leading to me spending my stage time feeling like I had been punched.

I then went back to my flat with its omnidirectional shower and went for a lie down.

Then LOTWAA went quietly but pleasantly with an unexpectably large bucket at the end.

At 1am I toddled off to see Hurt & Anderson's sketch show. I had met them in my venue and as it was there last night I decided to watch them. A nice show with a wonderfully bonkers idea about reverse strippers. It was a little scattergun and could have down with a script editor and director but there perfomances were excellent and look forward to seeing what next year brings.

At that point I went for a longer lie down. The problem with being teetotal is I end up drinking gallons of diet coke. Sleep was a rare commodity last night