Schizophrenic

There’s something that happens to a comedian (well, me) over the Edinburgh festival that is Schizophrenic. As we get into the meat and potatoes of the third week, I am by turns inert and wildly over- excitable. Large swathes of day are spent hibernating and trying to heal the self-inflicted wounds of the night time. Oddly, these times verge on being boring, but it’s necessary to do nothing. You can’t live your life at 100% or you end up dead.

 

Because these times are spent doing mundane, normal things, when you get out of the house, everything seems so much more vivid. My show is still good fun, more animated as the festival goes on and you try to keep it interesting for yourself. Like everyone else here I think I’m starting to lose my voice. Lloyd swears by honey and lemon, but I don’t trust his new-fangled medicines.

 

Last night inbetween my show and Comedy Countdown I was grabbed by Tiffany Stephenson who was had a crisis and said ‘I need an act. Now.’

I walked on stage at Old Rope with absolutely no idea of what I was supposed to be doing in front of an audience who were waiting for me to do something. It ended up being the most fun I’ve had all festival.

Phil Nichol with a Hitler Moustache, heckling from Paul Foot up on the balcony and lies and rumours.

 

Doing press calls is something that comedians dread, but when we get in there they are usually quite good fun. The most peculiar of these this year was an interview atop an open-top bus with random members of the public press-ganged into sitting behind us trying to work out what the bloody hell is going on. We were entertainingly hooked up to the loudspeaker system on the bus so whatever we said was being broadcast across Edinburgh. I took full advantage of this set up and started screaming to other open top buses full of tourists that I was being kidnapped and to get help. Lots of fun. Absolutely the best example of the over-excitement in action.

 

Lloyd and I had our obligatory annual cycletaxi ride two nights ago.

Always a treat, I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Especially late at night. Last year we were hijacked crossing South Bridge. A man leapt onto our cycle taxi and took advantage of a ride on us. In both senses.

 

There is so much to worry about when you arrive at the festival; doing your show in the venue, having a good show, reviews, audience response, pacing yourself, not losing your voice, money, etc etc. Now we’re into the final week, all of those concerns are a thing of the past. Not too knackered, I am entering the final week with a grim determination to have a great time. There’s plenty of opportunity to sleep when we get back to London.