Dear All,

Brilliant - have finally found the password to get into the back end of chortle...I'm so pleased - I'd lost it in the move up to Edinburgh along with various jumpers, shoes and a trumpet mouth piece - so the last blog I'd been able to write on the chortle was saying how sorry I was to cancel the first preview for my Kama Sutra show - which perhaps wasn't the best thing to have done to instill confidence in people to buy tickets ("oh, I read he had to cancel the first show and we haven't heard anything from him since...").

However the Kama Sutra show is up and running - it's become a really exciting hour of stuff - it started again (first - obviously second to everyone else preview) with me and couple of sheets of A4 on stage thinking through some ideas with a slightly worried and baffled audience but now it seems to be making people smile and hopefully achieving its main aim...

I must say Paul Byrne (who's directing it) has been totally vital to this - we've not worked together before (except on Mooners of course and on the innkeepers and hotel concierges to get extra booze during various nights of excess) and going into Edinburgh with only a few ideas - a couple of sheets of paper and a director who you've not worked with before is a bit like taking on the Olympic bobsleigh team with a couple of blokes you met in the pub...however as it turns out PByrne is a very impressive man and has pulled the total disorganization of my hour round into something that is watchable - Paul probably isn't reading this but if you are - thank you x

Flanders and Swann (another show I'm doing in the afternoons at the Pleasance) is selling really well - thank you to all who've come to see it - it's the missing link in comedy history between Noel Coward and Peter Cook - so if you're a fan of the history of comedy or just want to see really great comedy songs do come along.

Mooners is up and running - we've had drunk break dancers who we had to pull out of a restaurant, doberman pinchers dogs, the normal level of total chaos and disorganisation all of which have landed us a couple of five star reviews and an awful lot of laughter and smiles. It's such a great show Mooners (it's more a friendly death cult than a comedy show) and if you've not been down - it would be great to see you. With the Moonerspeople - we've managed to not drink in any of the main festival bars - I'm not sure why we've done this...it's just sort of panned out that way...the other night though we had a great time in a little Jazz Bar that Maxwell found (Jazz is the perfect way to unwind after organizing a mass howling death cult intent on subverting the world) and if you get the chance and any of us can remember where it is - we should all go there again as it's a great club and the jazz is brilliant and raw - it's the punk of jazz...

I've also been doing the witching hour (ghost stories) and the legendary Old Rope with Phil Nichol...which is keeping me out of mischief...they are both great shows in my book too and I'd recommend them...

I was stupidly tired after Mooners last night (I'd done five different shows that day and five the day before) so indulged in my favourite Fringe luxury as I came out of a bar into the pouring rain last night...getting a rickshaw to take me back home to Leith...I know it's probably a bit rough getting a poor rickshaw driver to take me all that way but the drive down the hill is just the best way to end an evening in my book and last night I played his favourite jazz numbers as he was cycling down the hill on the Moonhorn to make him smile...thank you Mr Rickshaw man - you made my night.

I must close now as it's Sunday night and I fancy a pint by the shore...

Thanks for reading this

yours

tim

Dear All,

Just a really quick one to thank the people who kindly brought tickets for tomorrow's preview (Wednesday 1st) and apologise for not being in Edinburgh - a bit of last minute Kama Sutra research left me with a sprained ankle and a minor oil burn (who'd have thought love could be this damaging) and it's not good enough to drive - it'll be fine by tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to seeing anyone who can make it on Thursday.

Thanks for all the kind messages (and the painful suggestions).

Kama (love)

Tim

Dear All,

Sorry to anyone reading this that I haven't written for a while - as it turns out about three weeks...

I've been away doing bits and bobs abroad trying to get this Kama Sutra show sorted...and now I definitely have a title...and the poster is coming together a bit which is great (and I've got a sunburned inner thigh - which is less great as I can't sit down much - I'm writing this standing up)...I'd like to suggest that I have an entirely Cavalier attitude towards putting shows together and that's why I'm so behind but it's just the thing I hit every year of having to let the story I want to tell unravel in it's own way - I can start them off but they have to be given time to go wherever it is they are heading and I hate trying to pen the path of the story in - this is great in terms of my thoughts about story telling and how comedy should come together but it does often leave me with chronically little time to write the show...so again this year - due to a story that's got out of control I'll be forced to make my preview in Edinburgh a genuine preview of the show (I know that's not the new spirit of Edinburgh - it's more in the old spirit of Edinburgh (when it was meths) but I have very little choice).

The massive movement of the people, their eyes wild and the will to revolt seeping out of every pore that I hoped would materialise to lobby to move the festival from August to March has resulted in one man in my village with a sandwich board...this is less than ideal and may not have the desired effect...in which case I'd better close now and carry on wrestling with this story...

Luckily I've got a day tomorrow in the tree house with my mate Paul who has kindly agreed to direct me a bit...

Hope you're all well

yours

tim

PS for anyone in London on the 26th - there's a Mooners at the store if you fancy coming along it would be lovely to see you.

Dear All,

I've finally made it into the secret bunker at the back end of chortle and am going to try and keep a blog of what's happening.

I've tried keeping a blog once before and at the start fell madly in love with it, became so obsessed with it that I did nothing else, basically ended up living via my blog to the extent where I never got out, before tiring of the blog and now we don't talk much any more...so this is my new blog and I feel excited, like I'm cheating on my old blog with this new one...perhaps I've entered the realms of the blog tart...in this exciting new world, I thought I'd try and share how the run into Edinburgh is going this year.

Currently, as some of you know, I'm working on three shows for the festival this year - that's a lot for me - but all three of them just seemed like such good ideas that I wanted to try and be open to them all so that I'd never be thinking - I wish I'd done that other one too...The shows are - The Man Who Discovered The Kama Sutra, All Aboard and Flanders and Swann...oh and I'll be playing with Maxwell at Fullmooners...either I'll have a great Edinburgh ("too much of a good thing is never enough" being the principle) or end it with a nervous collapse...

The weather has finally turned in my favour - it's the really irritating part of what I've been trying to do for the Kama Sutra show - in that I needed really good weather to do it (I know - the Kama Sutra and the great outdoors - it's a worrying combination) and have finally got the weather and the time free but am now just a few short weeks from opening at the Pleasance and really would like to have finished the show by now and previewed it hundreds of times...why can't we have really good weather in winter? Or move Edinburgh from August to March - do people like March? All I do in March is sit by a fire and watch the rain. Wouldn't it be better to have a great arts festival in March when there's not too much going on?

Actually, I suggest we start a petition here and now to move this year's Edinburgh Festival to March - and I'm not just saying that as I'm worried about opening the shows - but selflessly thinking of the all the little children who might have a birthday in March and would then really have something to look forward to. Move the Edinburgh Festival to March for the little children.

Coming soon