This year was the first time I’d taken a show up for the entire run of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and, to be perfectly frank, I wasn’t looking forward to it. To be even franker, I was dreading it. For those of you not in the know, the Edinburgh Fringe is where hundreds of comics head to in August each year in the hope of fame, fortune and on a more prosaic level – pray that someone, anyone will come watch their show.
It can be an awfully long and expensive month. Edinburgh can also be disheartening as you scrabble around for an audience, reviews and recognition but, nevertheless, comics still keep coming year in year out in the hope that this year it will be “their” year: their comedy genius will finally be recognised and Edinburgh will prove to be a stepping stone in propelling their career into the stratosphere (i.e. they will finally get on the telly).
Yet my first time up in Edinburgh for the whole duration went far better than I could have hoped and here are the top 10 reasons why.
- I had written a show, packed full of jokes, that I liked and was happy with. That’s vital if you have to perform it every day for a month.In the spirit of full disclosure I should admit that the first time I performed the show in Edinburgh, the audience didn’t react as I would have hoped and I panicked. So much so that I got through the show as quickly as possibly: in 36 minutes to be exact. Given the show was 50 minutes long that’s quite impressive. I remember being on stage and thinking: I’m boring myself and then it dawned on me: I have a whole month of this. Believe me, these are not the thoughts you want to go through your head while performing stand up, and especially not when you’re only 15 minutes in.
However, one of the main positives I’ve taken from Edinburgh is not to sabotage myself like this due to my preconceived ideas of how the audience should be reacting. By panicking (Edinburgh can do that to you), I didn’t give the audience a chance to enjoy the show. By rushing through the material, the audience didn’t have time to laugh as I immediately moved onto the next joke. Panic mode then goes into overdrive which meant my insecurities perceived the audience not laughing as them not finding me funny rather than me not letting the jokes breathe and giving them a chance to laugh: thus I ended up rushing all the more and the performance became one hell of a viscous circle. Luckily I had a good mate in the audience in the form of Jen Brister who gave me just the pep talk I needed.
- Talking of mates, it is vital for your sanity that you have a couple of good mates up there with you. Fortunately I had Jen Brister and Thanyia Moore as my wing women, two of the nicest and most supportive comics you could hope to have on your side.
- I had a great venue in Whistlebinkies thanks to PBH Free Fringe. The venue is in a great location, just off the Royal Mile on the South Bridge and the staff are fantastic. Having a great location and a venue whose staff are a joy to work with ensured it was an utter joy performing there.
- I was part of the Free Fringe. This means that the Festival is affordable. Before the Free Fringe model, acts were often faced with a stark choice: pay for a room where even if you sold out you’d still be thousands of pounds out of pocket. I remember one comedian telling me when he did his first Edinburgh he managed to sell out for the whole run except for one night at his 50-seater room at a paid venue and he still lost £8,000. And that’s before you pay for anything else. With the Free Fringe not only do you get your venue free but with donations from a satisfied audience you may even make money!
- You need a good flyerer. I HATE flyering. I would rather play to an empty room for a month than flyer so if you get a good flyerer they are worth their weight in gold. Obviously if you don’t mind flyering than there is no better flyerer than yourself (that’s the theory) but I’d rather pass the work on to someone who knows what they are doing. So my hearty thanks to Jen Swan and co.
- I had somewhere decent to live which was affordable (the latter is admittedly not so easy to come by). I was particularly lucky in that I managed to get a room with two women who’d seen a previous show of mine and were more than happy to put up with me for a month, and who were wonderful hosts.
- I ignored social media. Admittedly, I used social media to promote the hell out of my show but I studiously ignored other people’s timelines. Believe me the mute/unfollow buttons are there for a reason.
- Talking of which I concentrated solely on my Edinburgh and not anyone else’s. There is always going to be someone who is having a better Edinburgh than you. Just as there is bound to be someone having a worse Edinburgh than you. If you start comparing your experience to other people’s you are in danger of falling down a never-ending wormhole. This leads me to the following point.
- I’ve seen people whose Edinburghs are going a lot better than mine but I’m having a much more enjoyable experience. I think the main reason for this is I appreciate all the good stuff that’s happening. I’ve had people complain to me because not enough people were coming to their show. That I understand. One year, I did an hour show to two people and I felt so sorry for them: it was as if I’d taken them hostage. (I suspect they may have felt the same). But if no one knows who you are; if you haven’t built up an Edinburgh audience over the years, and given the number of shows there are, then frankly I’m impressed so many shows get the audience they do get.However you have acts who bitterly complain even though they are selling out because no industry bod has checked them out (despite the fact you can never be sure who is in) or they weren’t nominated or no reviewers have been in or a couple of reviewers have been in and they have had great reviews but someone else has had more reviews than they have or yes, they had a five star review but they didn’t like it. (It sounded like a three, Maureen). The list is endless.
To be perfectly frank (again), it’s hard to feel sorry for someone complaining about the fact they have only had two five star reviews when most of the comics up here (myself included) will be dutifully ignored by all and sundry. The fact of the matter is you’re not entitled to any of it. No one has to come and see your show, no one has to review it and no matter whether you think so or not, you’re not entitled to be nominated. But it’s this sense of entitlement (and sometimes utter delusion) which means people are miserable, at times bitter or angry with how things are going because they fail to appreciate everything that is going in their favour.
I think the reason I am so uncharacteristically Zen about this is because I watched my mate Jen Brister write brilliant shows year in year out to general indifference from audiences and industry alike. I’d come up and watch her perform a well-crafted show with her usual élan to an audience of three (and I’d be one of them) and I just couldn’t understand why this was happening. Then finally last year industry and audiences alike started to take notice.
The problem is some people see how well comics like Jen are doing now and don’t realise the years of hard work that went into achieving that success. With a few exceptions, most comics’ success is like an iceberg – the success is what you see – but the majority of the work they’ve put in to achieving that success is hidden from general view.
- Half way through the run I realised I was performing the show much better than I had been. I was getting laughs where previously I hadn’t been getting them because I was letting the jokes breathe and giving the audience a chance to enjoy what I was saying. An obvious sign that I was enjoying myself and had added to the show was that by the end of the run the show was running close to an hour long. (For any non-comics reading this, just so you know an extra 10 minutes is a hell of a long time in stand up). There is no doubt that by dint of performing every day I become a better performer. I was also able to add new material to the show in the process and, as a result, I have loads more material to choose from when I hit the clubs in the autumn.
Edinburgh can be frustrating: you can be funny, talented, have a great show, you can work hard and in a sense all that work may go unnoticed by the industry at large. It’s not fair but that’s life and that’s the industry. Consequently, if you go up to Edinburgh hoping for fame and fortune, the chances are you may well be disappointed. The only way to keep your sanity is to keep hold of the positives. If nothing else, you should come out of Edinburgh a better comic. And then again, there’s always next year!
