I was all set to denounce Bob Geldof for being wrong in his dislike of Mondays, when it should be Wednesdays that should be held with such contempt, at least during the Edinburgh Fringe.
Wednesday has been the most difficult day of the Fringe this year, positioned in the frustrating limbo between the two long weekends. No-one includes Wednesday as part of their long weekend; and if they do, then they are surely insane.
After having two quiet Wednesdays, with one show finishing with an audience of two and the other not going ahead at all, the Fringe surprises me yet again and we had our largest audience on this particular day of the week with 12 entire people. Okay, there were 11 entire people and one Deech. He doesn’t count as an entire person unless I’m clutching at straws for audience figures, and I have been doing that during this Edinburgh. In fact, to make the room seem fuller this year, I have been placing drinking straws on seats.
They were a friendly crowd, but it was quite hard work getting them all laughing together. Not everyone understood all the pop culture references as they were not from the UK, but we got through it.
I started the day being very excited for my show partner Simon Lilley, who I had been told by Deech was on the list of the Telegraph’s top 13 jokes of the Fringe. I quickly skim-read the story, then went down to the voting bit at the bottom and attempted to rig the poll to help out a friend who has had a tough time this Fringe.
After sending Simon a congratulatory text, I realised that these were the least funny jokes of the Fringe. Fortunately, my three fraudulent votes did little to dent his 250+ lead and the article also misquoted his joke, the inaccurate idiots.
On the plus-side, he is cruising to victory in achieving a comedy accolade from a national newspaper, which is something that Paul Langton has never done.
The moral of this story is to never help anyone, ever; at least when it comes to attempting to rig an online poll before you have properly read the article.
You know you have been at the Fringe too long when you forget what day it is and what you have been doing on the previous day. After writing this entry, I realised that I didn’t actually write one yesterday. We had a good show on Tuesday with a double-figure audience. I’m afraid that is all I am going to say about it now and you’ll just have to deal with it.
- Love and Lilley: Fear and Loathing is on at 6pm from Saturday August 3 to Saturday August 24. At Kilderkin, 65 Canongate, EH8 8BT. It is part of the PBH Free Fringe, which means it’s free.