My penultimate Friday of this year’s Fringe can only be described as disappointing.
I turned in a mediocre guest spot at another show. It started off well, was patchy in the middle and finished relatively strongly. So ‘mediocre’ accurately covers it.
When I booked up the spot, I didn’t realise that it would cut into my vital flyering time to get people along to my own show. Adding to this, Paul was working for much of the day. So at the peak time when we need to be flyering, neither of us was there.
As a result, compared with the nearly full house we had on the previous Friday, we got about half of that with 15 people. To make things more interesting, four of the audience were locals who had been drinking for a good few hours and were very vocal.
Paul was on first and he’d be the first to admit that he doesn’t like dealing with hecklers and weird gigs, but he handled it very well and had a sterling gig. But with people who are rather intoxicated, there is always a chance that they will leave before the end of the show. Sometimes this works out well and you get rid of the drunks who have been disrupting the gig, but last night it took a significant chunk out of our crowd when we lost three just as I was about to take to the mic. I was disappointed, because they had been good fun and I do like playing with drunk hecklers.
My set went relatively well and I had some decent sized laughs. But just as I said I was going into my last story, two young couples who came in together late also walked out. They had been laughing, so I suspect that they had either somewhere else to go or, as they had been to a few Free Fringe shows, they knew they were about to be asked to put some money in our bucket and decided to save their cash.
So I finished the show performing to eight people and we made £9 in our collection bucket at the end. There is no way this can be considered successful after all the work that has gone into the show.
But the Edinburgh Fringe is a minefield of disappointments and soul destruction. As I’ve said previously, you pick yourself up and do it all again the next day and hope it will be better. This festival has broken many a performer, many much more talented than me. I am determined I won’t be another comedy carcass on the pile.
- Love and Langton’s Dirty Laundry is on at 11pm every day until August 25 at the Kilderkin, 67 Canongate, Edinburgh, EH8 8BS, as part of PBH’s Free Fringe.