12/08/07
Edinburgh 4 -
Categories: 2nd Aug 2007
Stone me. I was having a conversation with everyone and Dizzy laughed and told me that I’m turning into Tony Hancock. That’s funny, I don’t recall Hancock referring to someone as a winging cunt.
Spent most of the day getting more venues ready for the Free Festival. I woke up feeling like shit even though I got a good night’s sleep. I didn’t have a hangover, well actually I did. It was a hangover from physical work. I hadn’t realised how unfit and flabby I’d been getting recently. I ached all over and I still haven’t got festival legs yet.
Manera made a breakfast of sausages and… erm. Sausages. Very nice sausages they were too. Then we all set out to Linsays to help out set up the Hillside venue. It’s amazing how you can turn a basic box room into a divine venue. And it only took an hour. I was in charge of curtains.
After we grabbed a cab to the Underbelly to do the gig. What a fucking awesome start to the festival. We got a good crowd in and had a blast. I MC’d, Manera stylishly opened, Coppin did a fantastic impromptu set due to an act not showing and the mighty Pat Monohan wowed them as a closer.
After the show a bunch of student to some reporting course interviewed us and a good time was had by all. I even bumped into a few girls who I asked if they could do a spot in the sketch show.
I did a bit of flyering and bumped into my flyering rival Pippa Evans. Ha ha! I am already 8000 flyers in front of her… OK 43. Also got to know a few professional flyerers on the Royal Mile as we’d be seeing each other every day of the festival.
Then onto the Jekyll and Hyde where there were far too many people to help out, so everyone was sent to Linsays and I helped Andy White by ripping off bits of gaffer tape handing them to him so he could stick cables to the ceiling. I never knew Andy White knew so much trivia. Especially about Leonard Cohen.
I went to the Underbelly to pick up my pass and didn’t have a photo so I used the one for my flyer. I then ran off to pick up Sheena from the station who had the heaviest bag in the whole festival. She was also twenty minutes late because there were sheep on the line. Never heard that one before.
Show’s only two days away. Got to admit I’m panicking a bit. I’ve got a few need bits I need to add to the solo show and need to learn some lines for the sketch show. That’s all.
We got a cab to mine and them walked to Linsays where I was put to the task of making a comedy tonight sign. For some odd reason this caused much hilarity and conversation with everyone else sitting on their fat arses doing fuck all in the garden. Especially Richard Cockhard who seemed mesmerised like a moth flying into a light bulb. Let’s just say half an hour later I was getting a little tetchy. Maybe the Hancock thing was right. Linsay asked me if I was using a permanent pen. I looked at it and it was whiteboard marker. I gently touched a bit that I did about twenty minutes ago and it came off in my hand. Oh the hilarity that ensued from everyone but me.
Richard, Sheena and I went and did a bit of a rehearsal and got a lot done on the sketches we haven’t rehearsed properly. Are all Edinburgh shows normally like this? Last year I was a happy go lucky fool doing his show drinking his way through Edinburgh. This year I’m stressing out about the venues and the shows. Where is that young puppy with a wagging tail, wet nose and a bounce in his step?
We got a shit load of Chinese food in and read some of the press. The split between the two camps has actually been good for all concerned. One of the articles mentions how it’s good for the festival as there’s more shows, which is good for the visitors and the residence. All in all I think it will be good for everyone, because surely this will also bring in people that have never been to the festival before and would never have considered it if it wasn’t for the free shows. In turn some of those people will go to the paid shows as well. It’s great for everyone.
Bumped into Barry Dodds (who was off to go on a ghost tour for a change), Carl Donnelly, Ian Stone, Liz Carr, Tanya Lee Davis, Hils Jago, Matt Rudge and Duncan Oakley through the day. It’s getting closer. Brown trousers time.
Got a cab back to the flat and Okse arrived at that moment with even more heavy stuff that we helped him up the stairs with. Sheena crashed in his room and he crashed on the sofa in mine and we got to play who farted and I got to see his cock while I was lying in my bed.
Had loads of trouble sleeping that night.
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