This is the end.

Or is it the beginning? No, it’s the end. God, I’m knackered. There were things and shows to be doing from 9am yesterday til 3 this morning, so I drank a lot of caffeine yesterday then couldn’t sleep and have been all wobbly today. But last night was great – the girls’ night at Old Rope, with me (doing the first comedy club outing for the teenage emo character, who is now trying to get mainstream appeal), Lucy Porter, Zoe Lyons, Sarah Kendall – and of course, Paul Foot’s mime of the day. It was a joy to watch and be part of. I’m so pleased that Zoe got the best newcomer nomination because every time I see her gig recently she’s brilliant and just like totally rocks at the moment
Trying to think what my highlights of the Festival have been. Andy Zaltzman’s show – right from the offstage “sportsgig” commentary at the start, with all the statistics and wondering how the show is going to go, commenting on likely audience reaction / what jokes will appear, it is amazing and funny, different, endearing and smart. And I would like to point out that it’s a very difficult feat to make something smart and endearing at the same time.
From a performing perspective, doing Mitch Benn’s music show stands out because it’s the only time in my life I’ve got to play with a proper band whilst being the “lead singer”, if only for a song. It was such a buzz (I did my newest song “Sewing”, complete with cranked up guitar from Mitch and ethereal keyboards from Kirsty) and it rocked. Well, I don’t know if it rocked for the audience but it did for me – I now need to write more songs purely so that I can play them with a band, and practise more, purely so I don’t feel insecure playing with actually brilliant musicians. Speaking of which, I did Reggie Watts’s show again last night, and he’s still a genius. He must just wake up every morning and go, wow, I’m a genius, again. Except I don’t think he does because he’s too modest.
The show has been an interesting one. I’ve had some nice reviews, and the show has had some nice reviews, and I feel like we have achieved something, though you’re never really sure what until after the Fringe.

26 / 8 / 07

So Brendan won! It’s the last show today! I can’t wait to go home! I really should be getting ready for the show instead of writing this, but I can’t make myself take any of it seriously any more! Everything’s great! I’ll be back home in London tomorrow!
Look, I’ll give you a more considered update when I’ve eaten something. I’ve gone a bit dizzy.

Ooh… hello. This is the blog writing equivalent of coming in very late after a drunken night – it’s 6 am, you stagger in mumbling “oh hello darling, I just popped out for a bit” and hope your partner doesn’t notice that it’s been 36 hours since you left. Well, it’s been a lot more than 36 hours since my last confession on Chortle – how has the festival been treating you since then? It’s been nice for me, apart from the wi-fi issues. And apart from the rain. Oh, and the I’m now missing my boyfriend so much I have become practically teenage and it’s beyond parody. Also in home news, my Dad’s sister Kate rang me because she has read my blog and wanted to know if it was really true that Dad’s getting married. Oh God. And I thought the family rift would be over Gordon Brown (she’s quite pro), not “and I suppose I have to find out this sort of crucial family wedding news from a comedy forum”. I’m starting to think that if I write a blog next year I will a) get broadband and b) only write stuff about the weather, which would make the thing unreadable but very easy to get online.
In “what’s going on in the world” news – hey, how about those Heathrow protests?! That’s about as far as I’m going to go with the news stuff. I’ve been in Edinburgh too long to care.

I’ve seen SO many shows since I last wrote! I finally got to see Pappy’s Fun Club when we got a day off, which was just wonderful. I know a lot of comics have found that if you’ve got the festival blues, just book yourself in to see their show for an hour (because that’s how long it is, and anything less would be walking out of the show) and you’ll feel just ace afterwards. The Bob Dylan backing band sketch was my most helpless 5 minutes of laughter this Fringe. I honestly thought I might asphyxiate if it went on any longer. But it could have, and I really wouldn’t have minded.
Like Sarah Kendall’s show. Hilarious. Scary, Life-affirming – in the sense that you’re glad nobody died; the show is after all about her kidnapping. It’s actually as gripping as watching Wolf Creek and funny as fuck. 5 stars! 5 stars! I hope everybody has given her. The stand-up bits are those of somebody at the top of her game, and the acting bits are beautifully underplayed by her for maximum laughs.
I really really want to review shows. I only ever get that feeling though when I’ve seen something amazing, and I want to tell the world that this is definitely a 5 star show, so in that sense I’d be a shit reviewer. But as for the shows I want to evangelise about, I find myself constructing arguments with people who might potentially disagree with me: the impartial reasons why, even if this sort of comedy isn’t your thing, you have to admit that it is, from any sane perspective, a top notch show. I almost experience it as righteous anger, as though I’ve read anybody saying any different, which I haven’t this year because I’ve made a life-enhancing decision not to read reviews. Very much like Dan Atkinson, also blogging here – wonder how he’s getting on with that vow? I must read his blog next and find out. Saw him briefly today and waved as he was in his venue getting ready for his show – one of those situations where you want to say, hello, I’d love to come and see your show, please can I come soon, ideally before the end of the festival, I’ve just seen two shows back to back and am all comedyd out, so maybe it’s best if I come all fresh or as fresh at as one can be at this week 4 stage, so anyway good luck with the show and I’m just going to run away now as you’re probably getting your head together, what do you mean I’m not helping” but you think it’s probably best if you leave them to get their head together.
I like to think of that last bit as my most “Andrew Lederer” moment. In the most affectionate way. He’s lovely, I did his Anthology show the other day, and it’s great listening to all the mad, intricate thoughts that can go through one person’s brain. There was also an odd moment which apparently has happened before, where the guest act ends up closing the show but isn’t quite aware when they go on stage that this is the plan. By the time I’d worked out he wasn’t coming back my anecdotes had become random and I’d started telling the audience about the time I went to church when on holiday in a small Somerset village because I thought it would be the most weird thing two ex-Catholics could do to inject some sin and damnation and local culture into a weekend away – we’d only wanted to come and be tourists but I didn’t know that the Church of England is all about socialising and coffee mornings, and got sucked into a web of lies and deceit afterwards, because when they ask you why you’re here, you can’t say, “I dunno, neither of us has been to church for 15 years, and we thought how deliciously wrong incense and hymns would feel on this hangover. MDMA?”
I went and did Festival FM for the first time this festival last night – can’t believe I hadn’t made it that before given that I pretty much lived there last year. I did a regular review of the newspapers slot with Jon Handelaar, but this month as you will have noticed I’m slightly less topical so I just went on and talked bollocks. I’m going back on Friday for more silliness. Davies Wateracre from Pegabovine was on too, and played a very funny song about “Kate and Pete” - Moss and Docherty I’m assuming, unless my aunt and uncle have started taking a lot more drugs than I know about. I’m going to sign off now, put this online and read everybody else’s blog.

5 / 8 / 07

I did Old Rope last night, which was cool, although we all had to do a lot more material about gang rape than we’d expected after some very pedestrian but insistent heckles from a member of the audience, directed towards Dan Atkinson, who had already made it clear that “gang rape” was not something he found intrinsically funny but that some material he was working on may involve the words gang rape. I also get incredibly bored by women who are fine with using almost any swear word apart from cunt (and then go on and on about it in a crowded room that wishes we could just get on with the comedy). You do feel like, well, stop trying to make it more offensive by objecting to it then.
The horrendous rain today has meant that it’s felt almost like a non-day. We did the show to 10 people, 3 of whom were kids under the age of six. They were quite quiet though.

7 / 8 / 07

I’m on a train back down to London again – it’s just for the night, I’m going back down to record an episode of the second series of Vent for Radio 4!! Oh yeah. It’s a bit like not being able to be at the Oscars because you’re filming with the Coen brothers, only not at all like that. It says a lot for how insane the Festival is that almost the only way I can get to write about it is to leave the city. We’ve got no internet at the flat, and our flat is 40 minutes walk from the venue (the Green Room is central Edinburgh, our flat’s somewhere near Dundee) so I haven’t brought my laptop into town yet. BUT it’s starting to go OK – today’s show was good for all of us, so at least we’re getting a bit more consistent. A few rough ones at the beginning because it’s such a weird concept, but I think we’re all starting to get how to do this theatre / stand-up hybrid. I really want to take at least one of my characters out into some stand-up clubs when they’ve grown up. The Katherine Hepburn style character might like that a lot.
Meantime I’m doing the late night gigs. My find of the festival so far (and I suspect a lot of people’s) is Reggie Watts, who is just stunningly funny and talented and shambolic. I played his gig last night – it started an hour late at 2am but the audience were still unbelievably up for it. He did improvised songs, poems and flights of nonsense and introduced guests – a girl called Jessica who played brilliant kooky songs from New York, me and a double act called (I think) Stucky and Murray (?) whose song “This Is Every Cuss Word We Know” is a lot, lot more funny than writing down the title sounds. I did a gothic song about pain, loss, suffering and death.
I also saw Phil Nichol’s show last night, which was a proper exciting event. There’s a backing band and a piss-take Vegas slickness to the show, which rocks. It’s kind of a story vibe – well, several stories, which all weave into one by the end. Very very funny. It’s heart-warming too the way he rubs his crotch into that man’s head. And the Scandinavian pop song sung by Kirsty about the stalker girl is genius – go and see it all!!
I’m starting to worry that this blog is going to be a bit “and then I saw this show, and it were brilliant, and then I met these people and they were brilliant”, but I just don’t see the point in being negative about stuff. Seems a bit counter-productive, and arrogant, a bit like “well, everything I do is marvellous, let’s see who isn’t”. Which doesn’t mean to say that if I’ve seen people so far and not mentioned them they’re not fantastic, oh God, I think I need a lie down.
My Dad sent me a five page letter yesterday to tell me his going to marry his ex-girlfriend who I haven’t seen for 5 years. Wow! Look how irrelevant non-Edinburgh news looks, even if it’s earth shattering. He’s currently on holiday with my mum and stepfather. Just the three of them. I’m not joking. This’ll be the second parent’s wedding I’ll have attended in two years, I wonder if I can use the same mix tape. Mum is thrilled, and has of course agreed to give him away.

What other shows can I recommend? Carey Marx’s show. Haven’t even seen it yet, but I know it’s going to be amazing if the tryout material is anything to go by. He is one of the most pure yet evil joke writers and deliverers that have ever existed. Nick (Doody)’s show, which is awesome and not the “difficult second album” that he suspected and still refers to in the show. Increasingly, there isn’t a stage he goes on that he doesn’t own. Janice Phayre’s show will be tremendous and brilliant too! She was single-handedly responsible for the most debauched April mini-break of my life when she got me involved in the skiing gigs out near Val d’Isere. The already unlikely scenario of getting paid to get drunk for 5 days while learning to ski was made even better by Janice’s presence as “the motivator”: knowing from her that you can definitely tackle a blue slope as a complete novice with no sleep and a hangover made it all somehow OK. So go and see her show, because she’ll make you feel a bit like that without all the guilt and bother of air travel and ankle injuries.

31 / 7 / 07

Hello, and welcome to my blog where I’m going to deal with the two massive topics of what’s going on at the Edinburgh Festival and what’s going on in the news! Bear in mind though that it is August, so “the news” will probably consist of sport and a lot of over-exposure for the Chris Langham case.

I’m on the train up to Edinburgh now, and the man sitting next to me has just sat down, opened his computer and started writing a piece entitled GILDED BALLOON BLOG DAY 1. He looks familiar. We’re now engaged in some kind of weird speed writing competition, and I think I might have to put my headphones on and do something else soon, because I think he might be winning. I’m also pretty sure he’s a comedian. No, no, no. At some point I’m going to have to talk to him because I’m too curious, and so I keep staring at his screen to try and pick up some clues to what he’s doing, and there’s going to come a point when this just seems rude, and I’d be better off getting the information out of him directly.

In the meantime, it’s weird finding myself writing a blog, not just under these slightly exam conditions, as I stare nervously across to my prolific neighbour, but also because I’m la la la la la la insert relevant point. See? Even in sharing the information that I’m not the kind of person who shares very easily, I actually have difficulty in… sharing the information. I’d find therapy useless, I’d just pay them £100 an hour so I could feel a massive sense of triumph at the end when I had managed to avoid telling them anything.
There’s a similar hourly loss rate at the festival though, so in a way it’s practically the same thing.

But this year should be good. I’m doing a few shows, not a solo show, but something a bit different. The main show is called Open Mic At The Globe and it’s a character stand-up show that’s on at the Green Room. I’m appearing first as an S&M fetishist called Katherine (inspired by Katherine in Shakespeare’s Taming Of The Shrew, Christ was that a good idea, oh well it’s only Edinburgh) and then as an angst ridden emo teenager, inspired by the ‘commoner’ Ophelia in (yes really) Hamlet. We were thinking of premiering it at a late night gig at Watford Jongleurs. It’s actually been really cool so far because all the characters do work as regular stand-up. In most ways anyway. It’s brilliant playing somebody else on stage, and when it works well I feel like I’m becoming stronger as a comic and learning a lot. Up until now I’ve only performed stand-up as me.
Then I think I’ll also be hosting a few of the Phone Book Live shows, as well as doing ?!?, an afternoon offbeat. I’m looking forward to Old Rope as well. That’s been consistently my favourite new material night. One of the last times I was there I was even introduced onstage as “London’s celebrated hardcore gangsta rapper Hils Barker”, which almost never happens.

I’ve just found out that the person sitting next to me is comedian Stuart Goldsmith, WHO IS APPEARING IN STUART GOLDSMITH AND JIMMY MCGHIE AT 9.30 PM IN THE GILDED BALLOON BALCONY. Despite the fact that we are both very famous, we didn’t recognise each other at first, because we kept just staring at our screens and writing faster and faster. But his show and his blog are the best I’ve ever seen, and I’m not just saying that. Link to his blog here. www.gildedballoon.co.uk I feel uplifted by the whole event. When I started the journey I thought how ridiculously impolite it was for two people to be writing away into cyberspace addressing strangers when they haven’t the basic 1950s courtesy to address one another. Not even a “You appear warm, can I place your hat on the rack?” or a “do you need anything from the buffet car?” No, just type, type, type. But now, well it’s a different story. We’re chatting away, organising selfless acts of mutual publicity. I’ll probably mention that I’m going to the buffet car shortly.

Lovely to see pictures of Gordon Brown at Camp David with George Bush in the papers today. Pretty much any foreign leader knows that if you’re invited to Camp David you arrive wearing slacks and a casual but extremely preppy sweater, and if you’re staying till the next day, you do the same thing in a different colour. If you’re uncertain of the look, you rent series 2-3 of The West Wing and study the episodes where they’re in the office on a Sunday for the correct degree of “Christ I’m in the office so often and work such long hours in my suit I’ve forgotten what fashion is – will this do, it has something to do with golf”. So it’s brilliant that Gordon just went for the rumpled suit and tie. Didn’t give Bush any compliments, said he was going to take British troops out of Iraq whenever he saw fit, probably slept in his clothes and everything, and Bush FUCKING LOVES IT. “Was that the Prime Minister of Britain or the ghost of Joe Strummer?” he told The Washington Post. “I’m reeling from his charisma!” Tony Blair was such a bad actor I couldn’t bear it. It’s not like I was ever a fan of Gordon’s but ever since he became Prime Minister he’s so fuck you I won’t do what you tell me he’s practically Rage Against the Machine. OK, I’m exaggerating. I hope my Dad isn’t going to be reading this. He hates Gordon Brown so much that for the past 5 years he’s had an ongoing Word document called Angry With Gordon Brown, and whenever Gordon does something which is going to lead us further towards economic ruin he goes straight to his computer and updates it, making us all read the latest version.

1 / 8 / 07

It’s my first proper day in Edinburgh so there’s no real news yet. That’s probably because I’ve done nothing apart from go food shopping and try to finish writing stuff for the shows. I went for a drink last night with Nick Doody and Kirsty Newton, who is as usual doing an unbelievable number of shows with her amazing musical in-demandness, and the only other person we saw at the Spiegeltent who we knew was Stuart Goldsmith – how weird is THAT?. I’m just saying, it’s like I’m being followed. Apart from that, I’ve installed a stove top coffee machine at the flat, which I think is real progress.