The rains came today. This is more like it. I’m sleeping 3 hours a night and living on noddles and massive pizzas at 4am. I’ve seen Ross Sutherland’s Comedian Dies In The Middle Of A Joke and Molly Naylor’s My Robot Heart, both of which are excellent.
Ross’ is an interactive play set in a comedy club in 1983 which itself is stuck in a 7 minute time loop. Sound weird? It is I guess, but in a good way. There are loads of little touches, lots of nice work gone into the characters that you only notice as you revolve around the room with each spin back of the clock. Hard to explain but trust me it’s magical and you won’t ever forget it.
Molly’s is a more traditional affair, in so much as we are not taking part, but Molly’s so excellent at putting you at your ease. The audience feel very comfortable in her company and the characters she tells us about are delightful: a ten year old boy making some hard decisions about who to be mates with; a dying man trying to do one good thing for his daughter; and a bride-to-be with the jitters. It’s delightful and captivating, and all the action is off-set by the sweet indie musings of live on stage real band (but rubbish actors – their words not mine) The Middle Ones.
I leave the house quite early each day. Well, quite early for Edinburgh, it usually at least brunch and not breakfast time. I try and see something and then hang out in Brooke’s bar in The Pleasance doing work before eating again at four, having a pint and doing my show at half six.
My show is going well. 2nd show my least favourite thus far, but all solid. I got a great review from Natasha Tripney at Exeunt last night. Another 4 stars! Natasha, as I have said before on this blog, is the most experienced reviewer of spoken word shows in the country. She’s been watching my stuff since Aisle16 days and she really knows her stuff. Her reviews are also well written and a joy to read. Of all the reviewers I guess it’s her response I’m most interested in. I think she nailed it this year, saying that this show feels like an appendix of last year’s (true) but that it was not less enjoyable for that, which I also think is true. Her final paragraph was very satisfying for me:
“Wright’s been performing at Edinburgh for ten years and it shows in the full-tilt energy and confidence of his performance, and in material which, while playing with poetic form and metre, is also some of the funniest and most incisive writing you’ll see on the Fringe, regardless of category.”
I’m waiting on a couple more reviews from ThreeWeeks and Broadway Baby, which will make six in all. Massive props (as I believe the kids are saying) to my excellent PR Steve Forster for milking more reviews than I have done shows from the run. He’s the business.
Might go and have a bit more sleep.