The View from Oxford

Oxford is a series of large stone buildings punctuated by people looking at large stone buildings.  It’s the perfect time to leave, because hardly anyone notices.  At home, I pack to go to Edinburgh in August.  I own everything I pack, except one top which is borrowed.

Our director told us that we’re going to be in Edinburgh for the whole of August, and that the whole of August is going to be spent in Edinburgh.  Are they the same?  If I left Edinburgh, would it stop being August?  If it stopped being August, would Edinburgh have to change its name, to Ethel, say?  I don’t think this would hold up to a test.  But trusting your director is essential.

I need to help write a rota for the Imps.  Now I know what you’re thinking – ‘Isn’t a rota a poor man’s sonnet?’.  No.  It comes from the very same etymological root that gave us ‘rotation’ and ‘rotisserie’.  Figuratively the Imps are strapped to a metal frame over a fire of giving out flyers and doing shows (3.45pm), and I am the muscle-laden lackey in a leather balaclava slowly turning them round to ensure they are all well-cooked by the end of August but not singed.  Every well-organised show at the Fringe has one of these, and if there is one thing you can say for our show (Gilded Balloon) it is that it’s very well organised.

I suddenly realise we don’t have any scripts.  Did we forget to choose one?  What were we rehearsing all that time?  Did we choose one and then forget to order it?  No indeed! Is the answer.  Perish these thoughts.  We don’t know what the audience want until they shout to us on the day, and then we make it up on the spot.  We make up songs and scenes, and do musicals (which are longer stories with singing) and plays in the style of Shakespeare (which are longer stories with Shakespeare), all on the spur of the moment.

We make a new show every day based entirely on audience suggestions, which is more fun for us and more bewildering, at least, for everyone else.  This was a skill that I was really delighted by when I saw the Imps as an audience member at the Edinburgh Fringe last year.  I never would have thought that, in a year’s time, I’d be slowly rotating them on a spit.  Here’s to a beautiful Edinburgh.

Dylan (the tall one. No, not that guy, the really tall one)