It’s the final day of the fringe. Well, it is for us. Those poor bastards at the Pleasance limp on for another day but all of us at the good ship Underbelly bail today. Hurrah for the Fringe. Hurrah for the end. It’s been a lovely run. I didn’t have a great time last year, I was a bag of self-conscious nerves by the end of it all. This year, by contrast, I feel confident in my abilities as a writer and performer and looking forward to bringing a new poetry show up next year. Joel and I might well return as a double act as well. Our success this year means that financially it won’t be too difficult to bring a show even without funding. Of course it could all go tits up next year, but you have to hope for best. I suppose we should also plan for the worse, but I’d rather plan for the best as well. It makes planning more fun. If the worse does show it’s ugly head we’ll just do what we normally do, which is eat junk food and get pissed.
Talking of getting pissed, I did that last night. After a run of six great shows yesterday’s felt lacklustre and uncomfortable. The audience weren’t giving us very much and instead of ramping up the energy in response we came down to their levels on ennui instead. It was a shame as our editor at Penguin, Simon Prosser, and my agents were in. Still, they seemed to enjoy it and my teen angst poetry went down well. After the show we had a few beers with Simon before heading home for a Take Away curry. I like a curry, me. Joel, John and I then headed down to the final East to Edinburgh social. PR top dog and E2E lynchpin Steve Forster carried on the great tradition started a few years back by Ant Roberts by giving out silly awards to all the E2E companies. In Ant’s absent the ‘Tony’ Awards became the ‘Absentony’ Awards. I assisted by planning the roll of Ant. This basically involves hunching my shoulders and rubbing my hands together. It’s not a great impression but you get the … er … impression. Problem is, it’s only really a five second joke, so 15 minutes into he prize giving it was wearing a bit thin. Still, spirits were high, and drank, and all had a good time.
A few of then headed over to The Underbelly. Panda, my darling sister (in spirit only, not blood) was in the wars. This is the third time she’s fallen over and scraped her knees. But the mainly it was all just GOOD FUN. A fitting final pissed night to a great festival.
I have been buoyed also this week by great reviews for my performances at Book Slam and The Story Teller’s Club. I was trashed at the latter of these two (very unprofessional, I know) but seemed to get away with it so I’m glad about that. Normally these late night things don’t get reviewed (or my ones don’t at least) which is a shame because I often put in some of my best performances at them.