As you may have guessed, I have arrived in Edinburgh.
You are probably wondering why I have used 0 for the day number when the Fringe has already started. Well, the reasoning behind that is because I have not yet started my show and the majority of this blog will be written about things that have taken place on the previous day. But worry not, I start my show today.
Past journeys to the Fringe have been frequently traumatic, with various things going wrong and me arriving at the train with minutes to spare and soaked in sweat. This year’s journey was surprisingly uneventful, although I did have to be at Kings Cross for 7am just to add an element of the ridiculous.
Once in Edinburgh, I collected the keys for my flat, which is astonishingly nice and makes up for probably about a week on the sofa as it is a two-bed flat and there are three of us.
Then I swang by the Kilderkin to check everything was ready to go and I discovered that my posters had not been delivered.
There was some trouble with my print order. Despite having checked that the delivery address was definitely the Kilderkin, the company had tried to deliver them to the house in Walthamstow I moved out of nearly six months ago. I got this corrected, but only my flyers been delivered to the correct address.
Contrary to popular belief, posters are not the most important thing for a promoting a show, much less those that contain little else than a large picture of the face of a performer you’re unlikely to be aware of. Posters do help, but flyers are much more effective at getting an audience.
Also, people can’t take posters away with them to read more about a show. Well, technically there is nothing stopping them from doing this, but it doesn’t happen regularly. Then there is always the possibility that this is what has happened to my posters.
But never mind, I have unleashed some hell (translation: sent a passive aggressive email) on the print company and hopefully the posters will materialise in the next few days.
I have show t-shirts. Yes, you are correctly reading plural there. This year, I have two. In previous years, I only bought one show t-shirt to last me for the full month. For my Dirty Laundry show, this seemed appropriate. For shows with other names, it has been more of a hygiene problem.
Coming up next time: how the first of my first ever Edinburgh solo show went.