Read All About It
I would like to say the nerves have eased. Instead they have become more splintered. One third of the way into the run and this morning I throw up in a rather swish toilet. Luckily nerves also kill the appetite so there is no cause for the mop and bucket. The two for one deal that makes week one of the Fringe great has a flip side. I am not the only person to have a very random case of walkouts mid way through the show yesterday. I defend the right of Joe Public to spend their time how they wish and when it’s time to go the boots should walk. However this is an odd case of staring avidly at me for twenty minutes then bolting for the door.
I secretly bang the drum for seeing a performance to the end so it can live up to any promise. I remember sitting in complete cold detachment through the first half of Enda Walsh’s Walworth Farce at the National only to be rewarded after the interval by the climax to what I now class as one of my top five favourite plays. It pays to stay!
I have anything but a drum for bashing out my show message on the Royal Mile and after an hour of flyering I resort to subliminal messages to passers by as I make a half hearted attempt to run after them. I am a great person to flyer next to as I make everyone else’s efforts look heroic. Now the sun is shining I have no excuse and I endeavour to get better.
The August light is bliss today at the top of Grannie’s Green Steps as the weeds poke through the Castle’s craggy cliff reminding me we are in a bubble of a festival. Quite obviously there are some major news events happening in the country and indeed the world right now. Unless there is a play about it here it does not tweak my radar. Surely this is a testament to the power of stories told on stage. Theatre consumes the body, soul and mind of the participants. I read the Fringe programme before I scan the newspapers and I am all the better for it.
