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It’s hard to process the fact that if I was doing the Edinburgh Fringe that I would be heading North this weekend. It’s sort of ridiculous, because what I am choosing to do instead is in most ways a Hell of a lot harder, but I feel as light as air about not going up. Good luck to all the acts heading up there and I wish I was coming wha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Not only have I been to Edinburgh nearly every year so far this millennium I have also previewed the new show at the Live Theatre in Newcastle on the pre-Fringe weekend too. So it’s strange not to be loading up the car, booking into the Malmaison on the Quayside and trying to steal as much shampoo as possible from the posh hotel. And then having a martini in the bar after the show as I wondered what the next few weeks were going to bring me.
But not this year. Perhaps never again.
I suspect that I am not finished with the Fringe and more pertinently that it is not finished with me. But I have spent pretty much half the Augusts of my life in this city (23 of the 49 that I have experiences as a performer and I did also spend a few days there in 2003 as a punter), so I am surprised there is not more of a tug or a feeling of regret or just wondering what would have happened if I had gone. But I really don’t. It’s not quite cutting myself off from an abusive relationship, though I have seen the value of that in other aspects of my life, but I am at least not deliberately emerging myself into a dark pool of depression (which has always been at least a part of my Edinburgh experience). I thought it might feel like a failure not to have made it up there. But it doesn’t. Not so far. I will continue to exist without the Edinburgh Fringe and it will certainly carry on without me. It won’t even notice that I am not there.
I am going to have plenty to occupy my mind and today was an example of how I will still be pushing myself stupidly and needlessly hard. I did a Happy Now? preview in Kings Cross at lunchtime (and it went pretty well - I only did two old routines and still managed to be on stage for 55 minutes - I had a crack at the Magpie routine from Someone Likes Yoghurt and only got derailed once).
Then I got the train to Hertfordshire to go to a barbecue at my inlaws. My wife and daughter were already there and Phoebe once again charmed and smiled at everyone she saw. Perhaps this is (as my wife has argued, perhaps not totally seriously) partly a strong survival instinct being displayed. Babies are instinctively aware that they are weak and rely on others and in danger of being snuffed out by strangers seeking to gain the genetic advantage, so by pretending that she loves us and by beguiling everyone else with her cuteness she ensures that she stays alive. What a scheming little dick she is.
Trying to get to the bottom of happiness as I am in the new show, I prefer to think that she is just displaying the natural human state. We are content as long as we have what we need and are unaware of all the dangers that are around us. But whatever the case, her happiness is infectious. I wonder if I became a comedian in an attempt to prolong this feeling.
I then did a gig in Hitchin at a club I haven’t played for a few years, but remembered being instrumental in the creation of the Someone Likes Yoghurt routine back in 2004/5. Some elements of the audience had objected to me talking at length about yoghurt and so I deliberately extended the routine further to annoy them. This happened a few times on that year I returned to stand-up, but this one (and one in Lincoln) stick in my mind. Tonight I did 35 minutes of esoteric stuff without massively annoying anyone. Is that success or failure? I don’t know.
Looking forward to August with excitement and trepidation. The nice thing about the London run is that if it doesn’t spark the public’s interest (and the jury is out at the moment - it could go either way) that I won’t lose any money and I should still learn something from the experience. Even if what I learn is that it’s time to try something else.
