Kate Gambrell On the Nerves That Come with Working on Great Shows

After a fantastic week seeing previews or rehearsal room runs of most of the shows I’m looking after, not to mention trying to tame my out-of-control inbox and endlessly calling journalists, I’m on my way to Edinburgh.

Today I’m surrounded by Festival Highlights friends and colleagues but I can’t help thinking back to the first time I was part of this early August exodus in 2007. Travelling up alone, filled with excitement and anxiety and with no idea what to expect. What followed was one of the busiest, most exhausting, most rewarding and best months of my life. Fourth time around I know what to expect but I still feel the same way – thrilled and nervous in equal measure!

You’d think I’d be less haunted by anxiety fourth time around due to all the practice I’ve had, plus the work I’m looking after should help.

For example, there is work that attracts press attention without me having to chase for it: David Benson’s documentary play – Lockerbie: Unfinished Business – about Dr. Jim Swire and the 1988 Lockerbie bombing is a good example, due to the current news cycle. But the aims of a play like this go beyond making great theatre and so, in turn, you hope press coverage for it will do more than sell tickets. So we find ourselves trying to change something in the world with a piece of theatre and some media coverage about it. No pressure there then!

The Fitzrovia Radio Hour are creating a buzz for themselves with very little help from me too. They are Fringe first timers with a unique concept (that of using original material to both recreate in homage and send-up 1940’s radio broadcasts and attitudes) and I am desperate for them to do well out of their fringe debut, so they are responsible for some of my palpitations too.

And then there are brand new shows from acts I work with long-term – the incredibly talented Barbershopera with their latest musical in four part harmony, Apocalypse No!; the irrepressible Dan and Jeff who have “potted” their favourite festive pantomimes this time around and are, logically, launching Potted Panto in August; and David Benson’s other show – The Singalong Glee Club in which he’ll be encouraging the audience to upstage him as he leads them through a fantastic selection of songs. I know they’re brilliant and lots of journalists agree. However, my vested interest in them and my genuine passion and enthusiasm for what they do means they are responsible for several of my episodes of 3am wakefulness over the past weeks.

Finally there are the shows coming back, as they say, by popular demand. One such is Hit Me! The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury. It is brand new to me though and like with all new loves, I have fallen fast. But how do I persuade journalists hungry for the unknown that this new production of the show should be top of their lists with all the premieres on offer? Just like this time three years ago, I don’t have the answer to this or a thousand other questions, but worrying about it endlessly and working all the harder at it as a result seems to have worked OK in the past! I may, however, need stomach ulcer surgery before my next fringe.

So anxious, eager and already sleep deprived, here I am again, passing through Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Maybe next year will be different. Maybe next year I won’t be a bag of nerves. But where, I wonder, would be the fun in that.

– Kate Gambrell

Kate Gambrell looks after press for nine of the Festival Highlights shows. She is a freelance theatre and comedy publicist.