My Edinburgh festival nightmare: further tales of standups' fringe hell
|
Version 0 of 1. Hayley Ellis People think comedy is tragedy plus time. At my first big Edinburgh festival, it was more like tragedy plus flyering. Two weeks into the run, my fiance came to visit with our dog Kevin. Sanity in Edinburgh comes in the form of visits from the outside world. My fiance and my dog were there to distract me from the world of reviews, backstabbing and chips that is the fringe. He had news for me; unfortunately, it was that he no longer loved me (my fiance, not the dog). I was pretty devastated because it had come from nowhere. I had to continue my run, performing jokes every night about my wonderful fiance. I learnt two things: not only was I fundamentally unlovable, but I also would need to write a new set. I don't know which was more painful. I cried a lot, the kind of crying where your eyes are streaming so much your nose thinks, "I may as well join in." During one performance I attempted to make a joke about it on stage. A lady approached me after and told me the same thing had happened to her, but without the Edinburgh part, or the dog part. Basically, a breakup had happened. I then spent two hours counselling a woman who snotted on my shoulder about her breakup 10 years ago. She proceeded to tell me that she sold her engagement ring, and with the money raised she visited Africa for eight months. I told her that with the money I would raise from selling my ring I could probably go on a trolley dash around Asda for half an hour. • Hayley Ellis is at the Underbelly, Wee Coo, until 24 August. Susan Calman A comedian's first Edinburgh is high pressure at the best of times, but for me it was utterly terrifying. I'd just resigned from my job as a solicitor in one of the big shiny law firms in Glasgow in order to be a standup comedian. To my face, people said I was brave, although I'm aware that behind my back they said I was stupid. But I was determined to prove my doubters wrong, to be a success at the fringe, probably get my own Channel 4 series and then laugh at them all from my mansion in Hollywood. The plan was to run a late-night showcase gig at one of the most happening venues in the city. Now, I'm from Glasgow, which is only a short drive away from the capital, but I hadn't spent any real time at the fringe. Naively, I had no idea that there were, approximately, 700m shows being performed, most of which had very famous people in them. The venue was deserted and, more annoyingly, it was situated down a lane, affording the audience a whiff of urine prior to entering the palace of doom that I'd paid £7,500 for the privilege of hiring. The show didn't start until midnight, which meant that I was trying to persuade the drunkest of people to come to the show, but even they didn't want to buy a ticket. One Thursday night, I was standing on the Royal Mile in the rain. I was holding a bundle of flyers that no one wanted. In an effort to make punters excited about the show I'd made a sandwich board out of a cardboard box I'd found at the back of a supermarket. As I was standing, with a sodden piece of cardboard around my neck, slowly turning to mush in the rain, knowing that the pre-sales to the show were nil, I saw one of my former colleagues walk towards me. I didn't want to face the humiliation of their pity, so I knelt behind a bin and hid until they passed. And so my love affair with Edinburgh truly began. Behind a bin, in the rain, on a cold Thursday night, wearing a homemade sandwich board. • Susan Calman is at the Underbelly on 3, 6-8 and 10-24 August. Des Clarke It's not easy coming second. I made a career of it. In the space of 12 months, I finished runnerup in BBC New Comedy, the Open Mic award and So You Think You're Funny? All the top prizes a new comedian can have. Yet I made a habit of turning comedy gold into comedy silver. No second guessing needed then to know that the second show of my second year at the fringe was not going to be a breeze. In fact, a tornado was brewing. Here's the set-up. I'm playing my first full run at the Pleasance, when I get a sense of something distinctly unpleasant. An uneasy rumble in the room. Like a surprise bowel movement. I'd compare it to the scene in Jurassic Park where the glass starts trembling. The predators were about to strike, and I didn't have Jeff Goldblum to save me. The dull roar I heard was a bunch of lively lads who seemed to have mistaken my gig for Wetherspoon's. There followed the obnoxious taunting of fellow audience members with a side helping of random shouting before a plastic pint glass was fired towards the stage. The boys were bounced onto the street by security and the show continued, but the gig was dead. Ordeal over, I slumped on the train back to Glasgow. Head down, headphones on, hoping that David Bowie would take my mind as far away from the Pleasance as possible. But sitting at a table only a few feet away were my recently ejected comedy casuals. I actually threw a coat over myself to hide. Which worked as they managed to look right through me before they staggered off at Falkirk High station, the second stop. I should have seen it coming. I had, after all, sat in the second seat of the second carriage of the 2200 hours train. By this stage my fringe was derailed, the gig had dearly departed, and I was ready to crash. The lesson? Every second counts – and bad luck comes in twos. • Des Clarke is at the Assembly Rooms on 1-2, 4-10 and 12-24 August. Lucy Beaumont I'm jinxed with accommodation in Edinburgh. 2011: I stayed in a B&B for the So You Think You're Funny? final, everything was nailed down in the room apart from the biscuits (and the sheets), and I was up all night listening to the couple next door making farmyard animal noises. 2012: arrived at my flat for the month to find out that the couple that owned it were just letting me lodge rather than giving me full rein, as agreed. That's fine, fine, but they were scientists with OCD and the house was like a controlled scientific experiment. I was blatantly the first person that had ever stayed to try and "help" with their "problem". They had a laminated list of rules on the back of my door and it began with "we can't see germs so... ". The first night I'd washed up my dishes before I'd even eaten. 2013: no telly, no radio, no tea towels, no toilet seat, just a cactus, a sword and a dying yucca plant that the owner asked me to speak to. Who knows what this year will bring? I'm paying three times the price for what looks like Elton John's outhouse. If the cow-skin throw on the wall comes alive, I'll know I'm in Edinburgh. • Lucy Beaumont is at Pleasance That, Pleasance Courtyard until 24 August. Katie Mulgrew Performing a show at the fringe you have to prepare yourself for the inevitable highs and lows. The expense, anxiety, low audience numbers, exhaustion, the reviews, the man sitting on the back row dressed as a giant bunny rabbit. Yep. Don't get me wrong, at weekend comedy clubs I've performed to a cavalcade of creatures. Gorillas, superheroes, sexy bees and a minibus of Where's Wallys from Sunderland, but nothing can really prepare you for being heckled at the world's biggest arts festival by a survivor from Watership Down. At comedy clubs I expect it. I'm prepared for the danger. I've got my comedy hi-vis jacket on. That day was different. I walked out on stage and immediately noticed someone in the audience: a renowned reviewer who, well, seemed to have massive white fluffy rabbit ears. However, the source of the imposing anatomy was actually a man sitting directly behind the reviewer some rows back, who the entire audience was now looking at. You couldn't not look. This wasn't just a bloke with a pair of bunny ears. This was some Hollywood, Daniel Day Lewis-level prosthetics. The kind of effort that if a mate turned up like that to your costume party, you'd go: "All right, Brian. I think you may have taken this a bit too seriously." The audience were now looking from him to me with amused and expectant faces. They thought he was part of the show. I tried to address it and have a bit of bunny-based banter with him: "Why are you wearing a full rabbit costume?" "It's my job." "Okay, but what is your job?" "It's just my job, all right." Silence. There was to be no bunny banter, but I was already halfway down the rabbit hole with no way back. What followed was another five minutes of me attempting to make light of the situation. The atmosphere in the room got weirder and colder until I eventually panicked and shouted, "He isn't affiliated with me!" It never recovered and was without a doubt the worst show of the fringe. The reviewer gave me two stars, the same day I got a tweet off the rabbit asking if he could bring the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse to my show. • Katie Mulgrew is at the Turret, Gilded Balloon, until 24 August. Luke McQueen I was in bed. I was sweating. I was alone. I was thinking about my show earlier that day. It was the ninth time I'd done the show and the ninth time I'd humiliated myself for an hour. Every day it was the same. I talk whilst the audience visibly and sometimes audibly question my career choice. On this occasion however, two of my friends and an uncle that I barely knew had come along, making up 50% of the audience. This was an experience that would be whispered about amongst my friends and brought up at every family get-together. At least my uncle couldn't fault the last 15 minutes; he had walked out by that point. I had a couple of drinks with my friends afterwards to be polite and also I thought it was important I said goodbye to two faces I would probably try to avoid in future. We didn't talk about my car-crash of a show; we instead discussed Paul's bonus and John's holiday in the Maldives. I then excused myself, conveniently before the third round, which would have been my own. And now I was in bed. It was 9pm and I was in bed. I was sweating. I was alone. Then I defecated myself. It was very sudden, unexpected, I had never done it before, but there it was, in my bed, with me. And I stayed there – almost as if I felt I deserved it. I thought about my show, my debt and my shame. I thought about quitting comedy. On the wall there was a poster with a quote from Samuel Beckett that read, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." As my brain was taking in those words, I shifted awkwardly out of bed, changed the sheets and decided that from now on everything was going to change. I was going to try again. I threw my stained underwear in the kitchen bin and said out loud, "I am a winner." The next day, no one turned up to see my show. I went home. I went to bed. I didn't sleep. • Luke McQueen is at the Pleasance Courtyard, 31 July-24 August. Carl Hutchinson My childhood hero was World Wrestling Entertainment's Mick Foley. After retiring from wrestling, he embarked on a new endeavour: standup comedy. We met once in Manchester when I got to support him on his tour, which was a dream come true. Later on, when Mick was doing his first Edinburgh festival, he expressed interest in seeing my show. Naturally I never thought he'd show up. But halfway into my 26-day run, there he was sporting the exact attire I had watched him wrestle in on TV (plus a new Bruce Springsteen vest jacket). We started talking immediately about how he was not allowed into a Springsteen musical due to arriving late and how he was unceremoniously asked to leave the building, vest jacket and all. Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, he looked down at my collection of flyers. "Would you like me to hand those out for you, Carl?" he inquired. "Now he's handing flyers out for my show! It doesn't get better than this!" I bragged to myself. Fourteen other people turned up. The room held 52. I shudder to think about the numbers had Mick not helped me out. Make no mistake about it: I was touched that 14 people would bother to come watch me in a dank, dark cave on a wet Wednesday afternoon. However, at the time I was enjoying no fewer than 45 people daily. Throughout the show I wanted to cry out to Mick: "It's not always like this!" – but figured that would be immensely rude to the paying audience members. With exhaustion setting in, I washed down a large energy drink, resulting in my usual 55-minute show running at an embarrassing 42 minutes. Three microphones blew out due to dampness in the cave, not that I needed them. The deathly silent crowd highlighted the sound of me struggling to subtly catch my breath, while Mick crunched his way through three Hobnobs my technician gave him in between changing all the microphones. I've seen Mick many times since and we've never spoken about that day. • Carl Hutchinson is at Bunker One, Pleasance Courtyard, until 24 August. Paul McCaffrey The first year that I performed for the whole run of Edinburgh was as part of the Big Value Comedy show (two shows comprised of four newish acts that are not ready to do solo hour shows but show promise) at the caves, and this remains to this day the most fun year I have had. There are several performer bars that are open until 5am, and back then, if you hadn't had enough by this time you could move on to the Penny Black, a pub for postmen that opened at 6am. Night after night, I would stagger from one to the next with my new funny mates. I felt like a king. One night the fun had started at the caves and had moved on to a dingy little club down the road. I'll talk to anyone when I've had a couple of drinks. It's embarrassing. It's all a bit hazy from the point I got to the club, but I was now on my own. I had got talking to a group of people and was attempting to breakdance, when the lights came up in the club and someone mentioned a house we could go to for more drinking. Six hours later, I awoke on a sofa in a strange house. I left to catch a cab back to my accommodation. I had a taxi number on my phone so I asked the first person I saw what part of Edinburgh I was in. "It's not Edinburgh, it's Berwick, mate," came the reply. And whereabouts in Scotland is that? "This is England, mate..." • Paul McCaffrey is at the Assembly George Square Theatre 31 July- 23 August. • Part one of comedians on their fringe hell: my Edinburgh festival nightmare |