24
It’s been a good week but it has not involved enough sleep. My girlfriend Corry is producer of Mark Watson’s last ever 24 hour show that started at 1am at the ace dome in the Pleasance. It’s completely over sold this year so Corry asked me not to show up at the start because it would be rammed and leave it a few hours. So I hang around in the loft bar with my friends Katy and Paddy Lennox. The three of us got completely hammered and stumbled over to the dome at about 5 am. The 24-hour show was, as ever, an enclave of good will. The audience are very much active in keeping the show moving. Many of them stay for the whole show, making suggestions and contributions. This requires a lot of stamina so they generally avoid alcohol. The room was still packed when we staggered in to the back. They were all singing Silent Night with different parts of the audience starting at different times. Silent Night proves not lend itself to this style of singing in the same way as ‘Row row your boat’ and they are all making a hilarious racket. Everyone looked like they were having really good fun and we feel bad for being so drunk. We felt like three tramps in child’s playground so made a discreet exit and walk back to the flat where I made everyone breakfast before we went to bed.
I wandered back up to the show for the last couple of hours. Corry looked like she was about to drop.
My favourite moment comes 23 hours and 55 minutes into the show. The last minutes of these shows are always the most tense, emotional and exciting. An hour before the end Paul Foot had got up onstage and announced he would leaving 5 minutes before the end of the show because it would be funny. His suggestion was met with confused silence. But later as the tension of the last few minutes became really strong Paul stood up and shouted that it was getting awfully late and he really should be off and marched out of the room. It worked really well and I think it was brave, because it could have backfired.
That night I dreamt I’d had several 5 star reviews. Why does my brain do this to me? You start the day disappointed. As it turns out I did get a nice review that day. This is a double-edged sword because the boost in confidence this gave me affected my show negatively. I shouldn’t read them
The next day Rob Deb and I went to see Inglorious Bastards. We needed several strong coffees afterwards to help us dissect the total insanity we had just witnessed. I’m still enjoying the festival but I’m really starting to miss my sofa. I’ve got a great sofa and I don’t like being away from it this long.