Race Against Time

Big day today. The Can You Dig It? CD master discs are being couriered to the CD manufacturers by a man on a motorbike as I type.

It’s been a bit of a scramble getting the album finished on time and there’s still a question mark over whether we will actually have the CDs in our hands by our first show on August 5. Fingers tightly crossed.

It seems that rushing around in a panic is de rigeur when it comes to prepping a Fringe show. I have never done it before so keep having mini heart attacks. My co-conspirator Dan Woods told me yesterday that I “worry too much”. “Never worry,” he said, which is, quite frankly, useless advice.

We’ve been working on Can You Dig It? – a musical comedy show about growing your own vegetables – since February so in fact we are reasonably well-prepared. We have written loads of songs about various topics including compost, slugs and Alan Titchmarsh, we have a script and we’ve got two London previews under our belts.

The previews went really well although – as always – there is room for improvement. I look forward to documenting our adventures on Whatsonstage.com

Having a show is one thing, of course. Getting people to actually come and see it is another. I am in charge of press and publicity for Can You Dig It? a role which initially filled me with dread. But we seem to be doing okay. We’re in the latest edition of The Scotsman magazine with the paper’s gardening writer telling readers she’s planning on coming to see the show and we’re in five national gardening magazines, which is brilliant.

The staff at our venue – the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – have been really supportive and seemed genuinely enthusiastic when I told them we wanted to run a cucumber trumpet-making workshop as a publicity stunt (we play a trumpet made out of a cucumber in the show).

We recently launched our very own guide to making a cucumber trumpet on the Can You Dig It? website. Check it out here.