Both of my shows went ahead yesterday.
For the 6.20pm show with Gwilum, we managed to get six people. At one point, we reached the dizzy heights of eight people after a young couple walked in about ten minutes into Gwilum’s set. A few minutes later, they got up to leave and said they had walked into the wrong show.
It was a weird gig, but those are the ones I tend to revel in. There was a young Scottish couple at the front and the man had consumed a fair amount of alcohol. He was heckling during the sound check when they were the only two in the room, so I thought he was going to be trouble.
During my set, I just decided to have some fun with him and let him talk; but due to his slurred speech and strong accent, it was difficult to understand a word he said. He then asked me what I could understand, I said: “Mainly words and sentences.” This got a big laugh from the small crowd and I will take it as a victory.
For Dirty Laundry, I had booked a ticket to go to a paid show some time ago, which fell into my peak flyering time. As I seem to be the most successful flyerer out of me and Paul, I was concerned that if I just left the flyering to Paul then he would scare people aware and we would have no audience. I am glad that I turned out to be wrong this time, as we managed to get a healthy 16 people in and made our largest amount in the bucket with nearly £35.
My set went pretty well on the whole, but there were a few moments when my throat was starting to fail on me and a few words were swallowed, which resulted in a few lines not doing as well as they normally do. Langton had a good gig too.
At both gigs, I did a lot more audience interaction than I have been doing at the Fringe as my set has been mostly story-based this year. Interacting with the audience is something I did a lot last year and didn’t realise quite how much I’d missed.
There are three more days left of my 2012 Fringe, with six shows scheduled to take place. But it could be less depending on audience turnouts, so I will be working as hard as I can to make sure that all six go ahead.
Then on Sunday morning, when it is all over for another year, I expect to experience a feeling overwhelming relief. I also expect a hangover as my reward.
- 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. The 6.20pm Amuse Bulletin takes place at GHQ, 4 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, from August 20-25.