So It Begins...

After a year working one’s balls off to arrive with the best show

possible, arriving in Edinburgh on the first day can be a nerve-

wracking affair. This year, I combatted this with two bottles of wine

on the train up, which meant that I got here in a state of relaxation

that bordered on the irresponsible. A dangerous precedent to set for

yourself in a place where alcohol is  forced down your gullet at every

corner, disguised cleverly as ‘networking’. I think what I’m saying in

a roundabout way is that you shouldn’t be pissed for your own

technical rehearsal.

 

I’m working on three shows this year, my own hour, Mark Watson’s ‘The

Hotel’ and Comedy Countdown. My show has been fun, I’m proud to show

it to people and that’s something I probably couldn’t honestly say

about previous shows.  The Hotel is a fantastic thing. I’d love to see

more of it but I’m stuck in my area, as all the performers are, so we

don’t really get to see it in its entirety.  It’s been fantastically

designed to look authentically like a crappy hotel. So much so that on

our third performance a chap actually tried to check in, not realising

that we were all just acting. The concierges played it straight with

him and stayed in character. It took him a good few minutes to twig

that this was all just a little bit too weird to be real!

 

Comedy Countdown was one of my highlights last year for being

untrammelled pleasure and late-night fun. We started with the first

show of that yesterday and it was a treat again. Mike Wozniak played

it for big laughs which he got, but it did mean that we effectively

didn’t have a real game of Countdown on our hands. I certainly enjoyed

it, but there are signs of cracks in my personal wallpaper appearing.

I think your body is giving you a message when you get chronic cramp

halfway through a show and need to get your hamstrings massaged by a

contestant on your gameshow. That never happened to Whitely.

 

The general mood around the place this year seems to be optimistic.

Ticket sales have been wildly good across the board and there is a

contentment. I think we’re all just relieved. In the run-up to

Edinburgh you can’t help but run through all the worst-case scenarios,

and in the throes of recession I had nightmarish pictures in my head

of me performing to just my flyerers and one angry Scot. So anything

from there up is a positive. I suppose if you set the bar suitably

low, your expectations can only be exceeded.

 

I’m writing this just before my performance on what is colloquially

known as ‘Black Tuesday’. The first day of the full-price tickets,

before momentum or reviews are really in play. So this picture I’ve

painted of buoyant, happy comics could well be a false dawn. Let’s see

what happens tonight. To be honest, I think I’d feel a bit more

comfortable if there were a few stinkers in the pipeline. All this

optimism and hope feels creepy.