A FISH IN A TANK
Hello, Beautiful Creatures. Here I am. Now a blogger for the Huffington Post. Could a greater honour be bestowed on such a humble clown as I? I think not. And if you're still reading this by the end of the fourth paragraph then we're destined to become entwined - like two lovers - over the next three weeks as I write from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
As I look around me, over the communal dining table of this flat in Holyrood, it's a sight not unlike my own desk in Tufnell Park. For example, there's an overflowing ashtray, two empty coffee cups, my notebook opened on a blank page, and a pen which no longer works. But there's an addition which tells me I'm not in my own home. It's a book entitled Survival Games Personalities Play. I don't know who this book belongs to, but it hasn't moved for three days and I'm beginning to think it's a heavy hint dropped by one of my flatmates.
In pre-festival interviews of recent weeks, people seem to keep asking the same thing: "what does it mean to play the Fringe?"
There's an honest answer to that: I really have no fucking idea. What, for example, does it mean to wake up in the morning, mindlessly smoking a cigarette while thinking of your ex-girlfriend for an age, then to put it out in your cup of tea by accident? We seem to just plod on in life. I seem to, anyway. The Fringe - like my own life - is both an exhilarating and an exasperating experience. The energy of thousands of performers descending on this city really makes you feel you're part of something truly special. Yet the biggest arts festival on the planet is also a trade-fair for the comedy industry. There's a great camaraderie here which is sometimes undercut by something which is fundamentally very wolfish. We're all thinking of resourceful ways to get audiences into our shows and we're all pretending not to read our own reviews. Some nights we play to capacity audiences who shower us in laughs, applause and collective approval. On others we play to three Swedes and a dog. And silence. (You made it to the end of the fourth paragraph. Lovers we shall be.)
I'm here to perform character comedy. My character is called Wilfredo. A Mediterranean romantic singer. All prosthetic teeth and high trousers. Grotesque and ill-mannered. Some might describe him as an 'alter-ego'. I'm reluctant to describe him as such, as we really have nothing in common except our eyebrows. To inhabit such a creature for an hour each night is complete escape and it can be very liberating. As somebody pointed out to me a few nights ago: nobody seems to have taught Wilfredo the rules. And that's exactly how I - and audiences - seem to like it.
Now. Kris Howe has just popped his head around the door asking if I need anything from Tescos. We bless the ground he walks on. Not only does he cook mindblowing veggie feasts for us most days, but he also transforms himself miraculously into Uncle Ignacio every night onstage, playing his guitar beautifully and seamlessly while Wilfredo unfairly barks orders at him throughout the show. Our producer Trudi is staying with us here too. She disappears onto her laptop for the first part of the day, wearing a hoodie over her Tintin pyjamas while growling under her breath if anyone approaches her within a few feet uninvited. One could never really call that woman a morning person. Neither could she be described as an afternoon person. But then again, the same could be said of me. So for these hours we keep a healthy distance of at least two rooms apart. Lest we lock horns spectacularly.
My heart is full today and I can hardly believe it. We've finally opened officially at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Several months of writing, discarding, rewriting, anxiety, preparation, reckless drinking, sleepless nights and procrastination are finally over. Apart from the sleepless nights, of course. And probably the reckless drinking. At the moment I feel like one of those fish in a tank at a Chinese restaurant where the diners get to choose which one they want to eat. Will they choose me, perhaps? And will they find me delicious? We shall see.
And as for you, discerning and intelligent Beautiful Creatures of the left-leaning, free-thinking, Pulitzer Prize winning Huffington Post, I think I might enjoy writing for you, and shall endeavour to keep shameless plugs of my own show - The Wonderful World of Wilfredo which plays nightly at the Tron - to an absolute minimum.