You can see Arthur’s Seat from the window of my student accommodation. Boom, it’s right there, looking in all the time. At night you can see the torches and lamps of people climbing up it, which is kind of eerie. Lost souls, perhaps. And during the weeks of the fringe, Edinburgh has a lot of lost souls.
This is the longest that I’ve ever stayed in Edinburgh with a show, which means that this show is the one I’ve performed more times than any other. I know every inch of it, now. To think that I started work on this almost a year ago, almost as soon as I came home from last year’s fringe. No wonder I know the thing back to front.
And so does my technician, bless him. There are a couple of songs during the show, and I looked over to his booth during one of them and I could see his head bobbing away. He knew the words. He knew what was coming next. That poor chap could probably write a thesis about my show.
But I still hate the flyering. I still hate it with a passion. Today is my penultimate day, so that means I’ve only got two more flyering sessions left. Perhaps I wont even flyer at all on my last day, because immediately after the show, I’ll be off to the airport to get the plane home to Exeter. I might have luggage with me during the usual flyering session. To be honest, I think I’m just talking myself out of doing some flyering.
The shows have been going well. I’ve been very pleased with my performances. In two weeks, I’ve only ever stumbled over the words of a poem once, which isn’t bad, for me. The weird thing is that the audiences differ so much. You can have a small audience, but they can be very loud and appreciative. Or you can have a larger audience and everyone just sits there quietly and you think you’re going down like a lead balloon.
Of course, it’s the camaraderie and the connections you make, which makes a fringe all the more enjoyable. Not only my technician, but also my flyerer, Tash, who took two days off to get married. She has a very Scottish accent but we got talking the other day and it turns out that she grew up in the same part of the world as myself. And she’s very good at flyering. She’s even convinced people to come and see my show!
And then there are the other performers. People like Jonathan Kinsman, Tom Juniper, Elizabeth McGeown. There’s a great community here among the spoken word artists. It makes you think that you’re not alone.
So tomorrow I’ll be performing and then flying home. I have a taxi booked to pick me up from the airport and drive me the thirty miles to Paignton, which means that I’ll hopefully be home by around nine in the evening. And I’ll probably still be wearing the same clothes that I perform in. Obviously, not the sparkly sequin jacket or the top hat. And everything will start to feel like a dream.
In fact, it already does. I’m proud of this show and the fact that I’ve managed to stick at it for a year. I love the way that it flows and tells a story. It’s going to be weird not performing it every day.
And I’ll miss the routine, too. I won’t miss the flyering, (I usually start around 10.30, carry on till 12.30, then linger around outside my venue). Once the show is done I head up to the Plains and the Circus Hub, where there’s a bar that most people haven’t discovered yet, where I can find a table and relax and drink a cola and eat a sausage roll. There’s a van on the Plains which sells the most amazing sausage rolls. I think I’ll miss those sausage rolls.
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/robert-garnham-bouncer
Robert Garnham 