Unprepared: Halfway There

Day (3–7)/13 at the Edinburgh Fringe

It’s now been a week since The Team and I have been putting on a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Seven Days, 11:30 am everyday. I had planned to write a daily blog to document it. In retrospect, this seems to have been a little ambitious.

So what have I learnt? Stand up comedy is hard. Selling stand up comedy on Economics is even harder. But it’s damn fun ya.

My strategy on most days has been to get as much stage time as I can. This means doing 45 minutes of Economics Ft. Obscure References in the morning and then a 5 minute spot at Free Footlights as often as I can. I’ve successfully tried out new content at Free Footlights and then incorporated it into my main stand up set. That was new, and completely crazy for me that this can be done.

Lucia came along and Tech’d our show for the first couple of days, but soon as she left, we couldn’t get either the mic, or the sound or the light on for the next three days. On Day 6–7 however, she was back, helping us with the Mic and Lights, so we were back in business.

A bit of Kharagpur came to Edinburgh when a couple of my friends came over. I obviously wasted no time, and got them to flyer for an hour for me saying this was an “Authentic Fringe Experience”. They lasted for about 2 minutes. Considering i flyered for 6 hours on day 3, I’m thinking i must be a sociopath.

I watched Born on a Monday again, this time on a Saturday. It was still a good watch the second time over. I wathced 5 more shows on the weekend. They were all amazing. My feet are now killing me.

On Day 5, a woman came up to me and asked if she’d seen me on TV. After i said, while i wish this was true, it wasn’t she then proceeded to kiss me, saying “Let me kiss you before you become famous”. That was sweet, but also, Eww! And who is this other brown comic, marauding as me on Television?

Day 3 was the worst. Note my optimism, in omitting the words “so far”. We had what i like to call a 0-Day. It didn’t start out that way. 5 people did walk in, but then, 3 people got up and left, and then the other two did as well. I then did a lovely show for Will-the-Director and a room full of what I imagined were the cast of House MD. (Will-the-director as in Bob-The-Builder theme song: Will-the-Director; can we fix it, yes we can. Because so much of the show is just finetuning and editing out jokes don’t work and writing in new ones, because if not now then when).

Day 6 was the best so far, we had about 32/60 people, and it was a super responsive. Loved that show. Got a review out of it even. We now have two audience reviews for the show, which is two more than I expected. Someone from datacamp even took my contact details because she loved my explanation for RCTs.

Some of St. Edmunds college will also be here at Edinburgh later this week, that should be fun, and tiring.

Day 7, today was when i realised i was just exhausted mentally. It was a good crowd, but i just felt so tired throughout while performing. I came back and was in bed for about 4 hours. Have to leave for another 5 minute spot at free footlights in 90 minutes.

I’ll let you know how that goes.