Sunday 13th of August, 2000
Then I pass out.
My body wakes me up, intent to get on with the day, at 8:45, 45 minutes earlier than I'd wanted. After some staring into space, I shower and get dressed. I eventually leave the flat at about 10:30. I vaguely wonder if I should take an umbrella with me.
For future reference the answer to that question is always "yes". Sometimes quite assertively so. It rains, not so much heavily as firmly and assertively and consistently. It is not so far to the venue - I am still calculating the Edinburgh A-Z by the standards of the London A-Z (which has a far smaller scale), but it is far enough that by the time I get to the site I am soaked.
Fringe Sunday is a big event, held next to Holyrood. A lot of the shows on the Fringe turn up and do short sets, hopefully to bring in punters, although whether that actually work, I can't say. The scale of the thing is also diminished by the fact that most potential punters are laying back, hoping that the rain stops (it does, eventually, though too late for me).
I apply at the registration tent, and have to walk across to the far side of the site to get to the Music Tent, where I will be playing. My guide confesses that she specifically requested this duty because it was such a nice day for it last year and she thought it would be quite pleasant criss-crossing the site with performers. Little did she know. We walk across the lush, green. sadly condemned grass.
They are still setting up in the Music Tent. I stay long enough to lose some of the dampness and watch as other performers arrive. A lot of sixth-formers in borrowed trilbies roll up in a mini-bus. At 11:15, Jem Rolls, our compere, declares the tent open. Some of the sixth formers go into a rendition of Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat from their production of Guys and Dolls, whilst, I realise, the other sixth-formers in trilbies are from a show called Blues Sisters, a Blues Brothers ... um ... influenced show who will apparantly be on next.
I go in search of a cup of tea.
I am directed to the Performers' Refreshments tent, where there are large plastic containers with taps on the side, one labelled "tea", another "coffee" and a third unlabelled, which I think contains a soft drink; and some polystyrene cups. The tea tastes like swimming pools. I sit down and watch the performers coming and going. Earl Okin is holding court over the other side of the tent. An awful lot of the occupants of the tent are from a school production of Kiss of the Spiderwoman which goes to show how much school plays have come along since I was in them. It was Salad Days then. Most of the boys in the cast have been given a Number One haircut, which, coupled with the black official cast sweatshirts they are wearing, gives them a vaguely terrifying aspect. One boy alone has not been shaven, and very outcast he looks, too.
At the appointed time I wander back to the Music Tent. A young woman called Kim is just finishing her set. "Look at the audience," says Mr Rolls, "and see if you can spot her mother." I do. And can. Then Mr Rolls does a high-octane bit of performance poetry to a low-octane Fringe Sunday audience and I am on.
I open with The Secret Agent's Dream, sitting too far from the microphone, so preuambly indistinct. People drift in and out. I follow it with Where Did It All Go Right?. I try looking at the audience, but they are staring blankly back at me. With their arms crossed. And these are family groups - when they get bored, a whole row gets up and leaves. I'm losing a lot of people - people who would rather go out in the pouring rain than listen to me. Then I do The Things You Get, all the time with the strong impression that we are all just hanging on until I finish and something else happens. Iodine and I sense (or fantasize) we are getting into a routine, but not an especially onerous one anymore. I haven't lost to many more (on aggregate, anyway), or not recently, at least. Little Games goes remarkably well, except that I fluff the end of the intrumental section. I finish up with Comforting Lie, which they seem to enjoy. They usually do. I must write another one that people enjoy. All the same, I don't think that any of the people there will be thronging the Tron on Tuesday to see me.
And then I set off in the rain to get home - I have an instinct that if I follow the curving road around the base of Arthur's Seat I'll get home more quickly. And so it appears. However, more quickly is relative - I am still getting soaked, the sound of Fringe Sunday fading behind me. I get back to the flat and declare that I want lunch - or at least something nice. Cold and damp, with a feeling of vague but intense dissatisfactioon - I want something nice, at least to remind me that nice is available. After the rain has calmed down a bit, I set off with Dave. We have to wander around for a while before we finally find somewhere to get a roast lunch, on the Royal Mile. Then we go to a fudge shop. I buy a quarter of a pound of fudge, which I eat on my return to the flat.
Then I pass out.
I wake up later and pop down to the Tron to catch Holly's set, come back to the flat, call Laura to say hi, then off to the Cafe Royal.
A bit flat - I keep having blackouts, moments when I suddenly can't remember the right chord. The audience enjoy it, though - they are here to see Phil, not find out whether I can remember all the chords. After the show, Phil discovers that another performer - Francois Raffenaut - is plugging Phil in his own show, which is very generous of him. People came tonight specifically because of his recommendation. It also appears that there is a Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band tribute band playing at the Pleasance. We aim to go.
I return to the flat and call Laura more fully, but my gum is beginning to ache again, making me less communicative than I might be. Phil and I set off to the Pleasance (Dave has to go to Devon for a couple of days), but on getting there discover that we can't get in - more of those officious Edinburgh types, who enjoy telling people that they can't do this or that or (in this case) enter the Pleasance. So we come home.
Bed