The Decline and Fall of Ed's Festival - Part !X

My last show at the Edinburgh Festival says something about my shows in general and my performance problems specifically. I had a totally full house. I started off with welcoming stuff and the laughs were big and the atmosphere was great. If I had then done "Better Off Ed" to them, it would have been a roof raising hour. But they weren't there for that. They were there for the Rome show. It wasn't roof raising. It was underwhelming. I brought it back a few times with banter and other remarks - but the Rome material was not delivering. Not that I blame the material. My delivery was tired and stilted. Friday's performance on Saturday's crowd would have been electrifying. It's a shame and a few people left, but the bucket yielded £110 and people seemed happy enough. It's just one of those things where you see what you could do with a crowd. There was so much to work with there and I started off with such big laughs. Still. Live comedy.

I went back to the house after that. My housemates were cutting windows into the front of their house. They had put up dust sheets the day before, cutting the size of the place in half. It looked like there had been a murder. I offered my labouring inexperience but they asked me if I could cook dinner instead. I went to the supermarket and bought sea bass and wine and other stuff. It cost £40 altogether. Not bad for three weeks rent I suppose! I made them dinner. It came out very well. They looked happy. We ate and chatted and then ate cheese and watched people getting killed by a plague on TV. It really was a lovely evening. I felt useful. Sometimes they call me "the boy." I'm only a year or so younger, but I feel like a boy around them sometimes. They have their own place and plans and disposable income and yet retain a huge sense of fun. I have rent I can only just pay and a haircut I'm not sure about. It's not the same. Cooking good food suggests I know what I'm doing. When I cook, I do know what I'm doing. I think some people have jobs that make them feel worthwhile and grown up. I don't. When people say things like "I find this very fulfilling" I think they are saying "This makes me feel worthwhile." I think as a species we are constantly fighting to find purpose. Animals still have this inbuilt. At least, I think they do. I'm sure there are loads of depressed elephants, however.

I want to just exist and not be defined by one thing or another or to derive validation from one thing or another - but I am only human. People can get very distraught when they don't achieve their goals because too much of themselves is defined by the goals they set. If they fail, they take it personally. The universe will not bend to my will and I don't expect it to. Be bloody nice if it did though, eh?

On Sunday I went to see "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes." It was great. Escapism. I felt incredibly relaxed after. The guy I went to see it with owns a company. He worked bloody hard for two years and now works ordinarily hard and still makes excellent money. He said "I'll buy the cinema tickets if you get the drinks." The tickets were a tenner each. We had our drinks in Wetherspoons. A lot of my friends are smart, fairly successful people. I'm a bit of an anomaly in that respect. Success is relative of course, but I am more than relatively unsuccessful. Increasingly I find that my close friends pay for my dinner once in a while or just keep buying me drinks. I don't feel ashamed, really. There have been times where I've had excess money. It's nice to spend it on people you like. In my bag, I have a tupperware box which had £700 in it from the shows. I will put it in a bank. But at the moment it's a nice thing to have. It looks like Scrooge McDuck's packed lunch.

I picked up my remaining flyers and posters from the venue. No one said: "Why didn't you do a Sunday show?" No one cares. I put up about 5 posters. I have about 45 left. Note: Fewer posters. I met up with some friends and had a few too many drinks. The film had put me in a good, neutral mood. I was being silly and playful. Then we talked comedy and I felt the weight gather on my shoulders. A few Edinburgh's ago I slept with a comedian. She approached me and said "hi" and hugged me then went back to her table. I stood there and wondered who she was sleeping with for a while and then decided to go home.

I had an 8am train. Everything went smoothly. I got on the train. It was comfortable. I felt like I was leaving Edinburgh. I didn't feel regret. It felt like the least substantial Edinburgh. In the past, I would go up there and just be glad to be gigging and coming up with material. I thought it was all adding to something. I thought that something might happen, I might be spotted, I might get booked for other things, I might get a good review that would really help me on the circuit. Despite the meltdowns and terror, there was always a point. This year, the point hadn't been so clear. I was happy to get away from it.

In London, it was raining hard. I got to my flat at 1pm and fantasised about a bath and tea and Fraiser and cooking. I couldn't get into my flat. The landlord had locked the bottom lock. A lock I don't have a key for. I called my flatmate and sat on the stairs eating a sandwich. I met my friend in a pub for some drinks and food. My flatmates thought of an ingenious scheme to send the key down with someone else and I could meet them at King's cross. That person was on a train that got delayed and then more delayed. I had too much to drink and slept fitfully on a sofa bed at my friend's house. He's a doctor, but decided not to go into work with his hangover. We administrators are made of sterner stuff.

I felt tired and a bit hungover and really didn't want to go to the place I knew I had to. Edinburgh wasn't ready to relinquish its grip immediately after all.

This is a thing.

The Decline and Fall of Ed's Festival - Part V!!!

My last performance of "Better off Ed" went well. Two lads turned up initially. I hoped they weren't Ramsay's friends. They weren't. They sat down in the empty room, so that when a couple came up, they weren't alone. I told them that I'd try to find one more person. I went downstairs and saw a guy who'd come to my Roman show. I asked him if he wanted to see the show. He looked hesitant. "Only until my girlfriend turns up." Good enough for me. I have 5 people. In Edinburgh, when you're unknown and doing an unlisted show on a landing above a sports bar, it's an audience. I made them into one row. I took my time with the material. They were appreciative. More people trickled in. A guy I know through Facebook said he would try to turn up. He stood in the doorway. He explained later that he was trying to block out the noise from the bar below. He complained that it was a terrible venue and suggested improvements in the set up of the room. He made good points, but it was too late. I was relieved to finish the run. The fringe company suggests a donation of £3 per performance for the room. I suggest they pay me £3 per performance compensation for such a terrible room. Let's meet in the middle. I'll pay nothing.

So the show gathered more people, the girlfriend turned up and stayed. It was fine. The travel story gets less each time. I'm glad I don't have to do it again. Repetition makes things meaningless. I start out trying to entertain and end up a tour guide. I'm not sure how effectively I'm making the point, which suggests I've made it several times before.

I met up with some friends, but soon grew tired. I have been drinking every day. My sleep pattern has found a new and destructive rut. Sleep for two hours. Awake for 2 and then it's sparse and intermittent until I reluctantly pull myself out of bed at 11am. My face looks pale and jaundiced in the morning. My brain goes into existential futility mode at 4am. It's the stress and the alcohol. After 3 weeks, the body can't abide it. The psyche is defenceless. Early nights and lemon squash, people.

My diet started well too. Home cooking and salads. After a couple of weeks, I walk around with a permanent cash float from the show. I eat pies and kebabs and falafel and chips and drink beers. I am walking toxins. It has occurred to me that I've never taken cocaine at the festival. What are the chances? I have had only one bona fide exotic sexual experience with a hot foreign woman while there. Other occasions have been drunken fumbles with comedians. I go to the wrong parties. I don't go to parties at all.

I meet with a female friend in a loud bar called Cabaret Voltaire. Another friend turns up and asks if it's okay to join us. He thinks that perhaps we mean to sleep together. I have no intention of that. Aside from the jeopardy of sleeping with someone I get on with, after three weeks, I have no libido. I'm not depressed though. I can eat like a horse. Burgers especially. Plenty of horse on those. That joke was dated last festival. Our friend doesn't like this bar. It is loud and rammed with 20 year olds ordering complicated cocktails. We go to a pub. There are women everywhere. Mental note. I will come to this festival as a tourist one year. So many available women. It will have to be soon. Before you know it I will be 40, single and seedy. Perhaps, I'll see things differently then. There is a 43 year old comedian who walks around with a handbag full of condoms. She is terrifying.

My friend buys me two more drinks than I want to have. I stay long enough to keep him company until someone else turns up. The friends I have up here are doing great shows and have had no reviewers. Not one. Not even one for my friend who is performing in a semi established venue and has an agent and a PR budget and everything. Something is going on this year. It feels like the whole thing has been predetermined. We are about the same age, are nice people and thus sense our limitations. In stand up comedy, it helps to be going places aged 25. It's not compulsory, but it means you're doing things right. 25. Big venue. Representation. Property ladder. Follow through. Get fleeced. Progress.

N.B. Scientology place on Nicholson Street. Up till now they have been "The L Ron Hubbard Institute of Personal Improvement." Now the gloves are off. I worry that they are on the home stretch.

The Decline and Fall of Ed's Festival - Part V

It's been a weird old time. It's always weird up here. Today the sun came out and shone brightly and then it started raining. It's some weird unsettling pathetic fallacy. I remember describing the weather, as a young teenager, to my uncle on the day of my grandfather's funeral as pathetic fallacy. I remember him saying, "Good Lord. Are they still teaching you that in school?" Not in general. Just one teacher called Reverend Chidlaw. It's amazing what stays with you, and what doesn't. My past is shudders and trivia.

Today I woke up with a sense of resigned feebleness. I didn't want to do my show. I didn't want to walk into the lights and do that tangled mess of words I've said too often. I was also aware that there was a slim chance that there just might be a good crowd in and it just might be fine. And it was. It was seriously okay. The crowd weren't laughing all the time, but they were with me. They never lost faith, and that's everything. I'll share a nice moment, because it's important to mark them too. Though they don't linger in the memory like the bad moments.

Anyway...

I do a bit about Shakespeare saying that "Nero fiddled while Rome burnt" and I say he played the lyre, so if anyone says "Nero fiddled while Rome burnt" you can say "LIAR!" and you'll be right on two levels, which is the best way to be right.

Later, I do a bit about how Diocletian killed a man called Aper after receiving a prophecy that if he killed a Boar, he could be emperor of Rome. I then tell people that Aper is also very conveniently a type of creature and ask them to guess what type of creature it is.

Someone said: "Boar!"
And I said: "Was that a heckle?"
They said: "Yes, but it's also the answer. I'm being right on two levels, which is the best way of being right - as you said."

He did my callback for me! I was overjoyed that not only was the guy listening but he was totally engaged with the show.

He said: "I may not have been laughing all the time, but I've been really enjoying it."

That's really the point. It's not always easy to make Roman history laugh out loud funny every day to a different mixed crowd in a nightclub at a free show. In fact it's bloody difficult, particularly for me. I don't need them to validate me with laughter. I need them to be engaged with the show and for them to understand what I'm doing. This guy did. Completely. Lovely.

At the end of the show I had got almost £100. Yesterday it had been £30. Same sized crowd. Same words. Completely different result. Festival comedy. Hard. Really hard.

I have not been checking for reviews. I don't want to know. A good review is nice to have. A bad review is too much a punch in the balls. I will check them after Edinburgh once I'm back in Sanityville. Last year, a one star review almost floored me. I don't want to be target practise for a 20 year old. My friend pointed out to me that my Chortle review is still the third result when googling my name. They advised I get it removed using the google 'right to be forgotten' thing. I tried, but Google said it was still relevant and in the public interest. It's 7 years old, it was judging new material from a brand new comic. It said I was borderline racist. It has followed me ever since. 100+ supporting comments have been removed when they revamped the site so it stands unchallenged. A friend of mine said about my blog that I'm unfair on critics. This is one of the reasons. Here's a weird thing. I remember talking to Jack Whitehall about it years ago. He said, "You sound bitter!" and then he cocked an eyebrow. Of course I'm bitter.

<meta name="keywords" content="Fuck, Jack Whitehall, Steve Bennett, dicks">

Hopefully that'll come up in a google search. Probably not. I don't have the money for SEO.

Anyway, I know it doesn't really matter. I'm not even massively annoyed about it. It is what it is. There's no sense to this life. There are just things that happen. People may think that's unsettling and nihilistic. I find it extremely comforting. You are born. You die. Enjoy of it what you can. Thank God for that.

I'm waiting for my jacket potato. I'm always most bleak before lunch. I remember I was in a car with a girlfriend once and she saw me staring off into the distance and frowning.

"Let's stop at this cafe."
"Why?"
"I can see where your mind is going. You need to eat."

Bless her. If our relationships was simply based on blood-sugar/ mood ratios, I could have married her.

My evening show is not going to suddenly become great. The venue is just terrible. Everyone who uses the space says as much. I am directly competing against an improv musical in the venue at the same time. I had to cancel the show yesterday, so I went to see them. Bearing in mind what I have said about critics, if you like improvised musicals, go and see them. If you don't, don't. The audience seemed to. They had the most enthusiastic young crowd whooping their way through the whole thing. The performers talked like Transatlantic DJs even when ushering people in. "Okay guys, fill up from the front and that'll be totes amazing!" They say it again and again like they have pull strings on their backs. After that they switched to not having any punchlines as such but putting on wigs and saying everything very loudly like actors - which seems to work just as well.

Darius Davies once got a review that said his act was "gold-plated garbage" which was meant as a slur but I told him he should take as a compliment. He's hilarious because he talks about plug sockets with the same kind of passion and conviction as Chris Rock talks about racial inequality. What's not to like? Gold-plated garbage. This improv show is the same. There's bugger all substance, but it's very well delivered. The improv guys fill the place every day with sheer enthusiasm. After the show they say to each other "Good show guys!" They deserve it. We both have the same book on comedy, but we're just underlined vastly different bits

Tonight I'm going out again as tomorrow is my day off. I'm due to meet with my flatmate Bec and see what someone having an extremely successful Edinburgh looks like. It's nice to wish someone well who is doing well. I admire her a lot. See? Not bitter, really. Credit where credit's due. Almost £100 worth of credit in ma bucket today.

The Decline and Fall of Ed's Festival (Prologue)...

'If I get things right, I may not have to come back and do this festival again.' This is a very stupid thing to be thinking when you're preparing to go to a festival. The Edinburgh Festival should be a bucket-load of fun. It should be a massive ice-cream scoop of delight. It should be. But isn't. Mostly what it's about is feeling that everybody is doing better than you and feeling a bit lonely and suddenly realising you don't want to do it at all but you have to do it anyway. It's just hugely condensed life.

Yet, I'm not feeling very negative about it all. I'm really not. I'm just wondering what exactly I'm doing here. In previous years, the idea was to come up here, get better, improve my craft, get gigs, try and score some reviews, try and advance on the circuit. But now I don't want to advance on the circuit. I always have, and always will, want to write. I'm in a BBC comedy scheme. It doesn't really mean or guarantee anything - but it does show that I am good with ideas, can turn them around quickly and can be original. On my day, I'm a good performer. But so is every performer. When the audience are in a good place and they decide to like you, you can't help but ride the wave. It's cheap. You turn up the next day with your surfboard, and the sea is flat and grey...and then you think you must be a rubbish surfer. But it's not true. You're just not brilliant either. What I'm saying is that a few performers can surf on ponds and most can't. It's a strange sentence and I'm not sure how I got here. I'm not a pond surfer. Clear?

I'm doing two shows this year. I'm almost setting myself up for meltdown. Stay tuned! I wanted to do my Roman show again. That's the future for me, I think. It's a niche I can develop. The other show, the stand up show, is my last go at me doing a fringe stand up show (that's not legally binding). It's got a lot of stories I want to tell in it. It was going to have a big, profound meaning and now it's not. I will get a two star and a three star review for it from ijustsetupablog.com. It's worth 4 stars, but I can't surf ponds. I'm not a pond surfer. See? Good writer.

The Edinburgh storm clouds gathered early this year. I went home for a relaxing weekend and did the Better Off Ed show to my family. I included about my brother Tom. He died a few years ago. I wanted to include it to make a point about happiness. Instead it just made everybody sad and it felt exploitative. I hadn't figured out my ending and just ranted. Everybody looked bored and annoyed. I had been drinking all day in the sun. There was a paddling pool in the garden. I didn't try surfing that...all right. I'll drop it. The Tom thing too. I know that a normal audience wouldn't react so emotionally, of course. It's not unusual to talk about quite personal experiences in Edinburgh shows - but I'm not sure it fits my style. I think my style is *GRIN* "I hope you don't hate this next bit..." *GRIN.*

That evening, my friend told me that our other friend had been arrested for having indecent images and videos of children on his computer. My friend said he wouldn't talk to him again. I said I would. We argued about that. Then he said "Next thing you'll say Israel is wrong bombing Palestine." I said "I do think that." He said "Why are we friends?" I said "Because we love each other." He didn't look convinced. It was a perfect end to a really horribly tarnished day. The perfect foreshadowing to the Festival.

Actually, I'm not meant to tell you that. I'm actually not a very good writer either. I'm not supposed to tell you what I'm trying to achieve. I'm just supposed to do it and let you work out and think "I see. Foreshadowing. Clever. Clever me for seeing it." This is what's wrong with my comedy. I talk around it rather than just doing it. If I were Charlie Chaplin I'd say "I'm about to slip on this banana skin, so watch out for that." I don't like saying MY comedy either. It sounds pretentious. Also, I don't want to be associated with my terrible comedy. I wish I had Richard Pryor's comedy. "What I like about Richard Pryor's comedy is that it's made ME successful."

I got on the train to come up here. I had a very uncomfortable seat. I had booked quite a nice seat, but there were a fat couple in it an I didn't want to disturb their fat coupliness. I'm not really an "Excuse me sir. I believe that's my seat" person. However the train took 6 hours. Every hour I resented them more. It's my own fault.

I'm staying with nice people in a nice place. Today I don't technically have to do anything. That's how I'd like to take this whole experience. One day at a time. The point of my show, if there is a point, is to actually try and live in the moment. Like the comedy. Don't build a narrative around it. Either positive or negative. Just do it and let others build their own narrative or take their own meaning..."1 star. I didn't see any point in it at all!" 

Right now I am drinking a cup of coffee in a big warehouse. I can't complain about that, except I need to go to the shops and I have a hole in my tooth fixed. As soon as I leave this sanctuary, I will see the plastered posters and desperate flyerers and the real festival will begin. I'm going to stay here for a bit first. Refusing to leave this moment.

If I stay here, nothing bad will happen.