Belated Edinburgh post
So that’s that. Edinburgh over, all done. 12 shows, 8 guests, possibly 2 or 3 laughs. When we turned up and realised we had a stage a fraction of the size we were used to, someone had broken the lights (Luke Graves sorted that out), we had to buy our own cables, try and balance the projector on a speaker, as well as having to do our own tech, we thought it was going to be a bit of a disaster. Actually the first night was a bit of a disaster really: we’d spent so much time sorting out tech issues that we barely flyered and actually thought we had no crowd at all. Having convinced ourselves that we would just pull our first show, not worry about it and get back on the horse the next day, some people actually turned up! Being about 20 minutes past our start time and in the mindset that we were just going to get drunk, we then had to cut most of our planned show and quickly cobble together some part stand up/improvised show that included our first guest Dan Nicholas wearing a bear head and skimpy knickers (lots of pubes on display) and a lot of bantering with a crowd of young guys who seemed to be laughing a little too hard (probably on “drugs” I would imagine, those youngsters).
After that though it got a lot easier. We accepted that the show we’d performed in Camden would have to change to suit the Edinburgh free fringe. We’d already had to cut some stuff for length anyway, but we had to make the show more inclusive, more interactive and more loose. Luke and I would improvise a lot more, talk to the crowd more, making light of the tech issues we had, and actually I think it became a much better show as a result. I certainly had some great nights. We even got better at flyering and getting people to actually come to the show. We even made some money. Well, not overall obviously.
What we do isn’t for everyone, and I know some people didn’t enjoy some of our darker moments, and when we had good numbers in and the bar was busy it could be difficult for people to hear at the back and some walked out, but who cares? Others definitely enjoyed it, and that’s what matters.
A big thank you to our guests Dan Nicholas, Richard Pulsford, Lorna Shaw, Jenny Collier, Andy Holloway, Greg Simpson, Eleanor Morton, and Ali Brice. Yes, some people did more than one night – you worked it out.
Luke and I shot a lot of footage over the festival for our film Kaile, Keeble & Kuntz, which I’ve been working my way through when I can. It should be a mixture of show footage with behind the scenes banter and pieces to camera… hopefully funny and released…. somewhere. I’ll let you know.