Humbling Bumbling Me.
Hello,
Again, it’s been a while since I last said anything as I have been preparing for Edinburgh, so let me bring you up to speed. We recently brought a motor home (a little romahome called Charlie), whilst driving it to my parents’ so I could leave it there until we move, we saw another romahome coming the other way, they flashed and waved at us :o) It was quite exciting, our first moment of being in a ‘club’. Which reminds me, I must sort out our romahome club membership!
Then came the long drive to Edinburgh, which (from our house to Ed via my parents) took around 8 hours. We got to the shop in time to pick up the keys and Bob is my Uncle here we are at our little flat for 3 weeks. Although, the “quiet” flat has workmen nearby who wake us up early in the morning. Grr. It is, however, not too far to walk to the venue.
My first show on Sunday was horrible, truly truly awful and lacking in fun. It nearly became the third gig ever to make me cry (ok ok, so I may have shed a tear a bit later as I wondered if this would repeat itself every day for the next many). Why was it horrible? It started off with two bar-staff watching, and 4 uninterested people who were only there for a drink. The uninterested people then left, to be replaced by 4 army guys who had just been in the tattoo (they get £2.50 a day extra for this apparently) they didn’t like what I was doing at all, so I amused myself a bit by dedicating a song about bumming to one of them (hooray for bravery), confusing one of them with talk of numbers and playing “What’s the worm eaten?” with them. For me, there has been no funnier moment in my show than watching 4 huge soldiers scratching their heads and shouting out names of animals! They were nice enough blokes, I just think they’d have preferred Chubby Brown or something like that. Oh, and the manager heckled me…
So I went home, trying not to think about it too much. Then a nice lady saw me at the crossroads and told me we’d crossed it the other way earlier, she thought I’d been playing at the church so I gave her a flyer and told her about my recent misfortune. She said she’d put it up at work :o) this made me slightly more cheerful. Then I saw a man who looked rather lost, so I asked him if her was lost and he said no, just working out which road to go down next. It was then that I realised it was Mathew Kelly! We had a chat about the Fringe and stuff as we walk down the hill, he’s not done the Fringe since the 60s, but did 4 shows a day then and can’t really tell if it’s changed much. He was a very nice man, said the F word a lot and had huge hands. We also flyered each other. It was at this point that I decided I probably hadn’t got up yet, and this was all some kind of freaky dream, in a minute I would wake up in bed and have to go out flyering before my first show of the run… I was mistaken, and most definitely awake. To make amends for my earlier failings, I got a spot at Kate Smurthwaite’s late show at the Meercat, where I had a jolly nice time and nice people laughed at my nice jokes. Hoorah!
Then in the morning I got up, went out and did some flyering, had about 3 people I didn’t know in the audience and a few more who were friends, family or other acts and had a lovely gig, I also ran out of time (the first time this had happened) and had to miss out a load of my jokes. Hopefully I’ll have more like this one. Someone also put up a nice review of one of my preview shows here: http://www.edfringe.com/reviews/read.html?id=5202 if you’ve also seen my show and want to leave a (fair) review - please do. Biased reviews are also welcome, but fair ones are preferred!
I’m working today, and for the next two days after that, so it’ll be fairly manic for a while. Then I’m trying to organise a Scrabble night for the weekend. Mmmm Scrabble!
See you soon,
Owen
Again, it’s been a while since I last said anything as I have been preparing for Edinburgh, so let me bring you up to speed. We recently brought a motor home (a little romahome called Charlie), whilst driving it to my parents’ so I could leave it there until we move, we saw another romahome coming the other way, they flashed and waved at us :o) It was quite exciting, our first moment of being in a ‘club’. Which reminds me, I must sort out our romahome club membership!
Then came the long drive to Edinburgh, which (from our house to Ed via my parents) took around 8 hours. We got to the shop in time to pick up the keys and Bob is my Uncle here we are at our little flat for 3 weeks. Although, the “quiet” flat has workmen nearby who wake us up early in the morning. Grr. It is, however, not too far to walk to the venue.
My first show on Sunday was horrible, truly truly awful and lacking in fun. It nearly became the third gig ever to make me cry (ok ok, so I may have shed a tear a bit later as I wondered if this would repeat itself every day for the next many). Why was it horrible? It started off with two bar-staff watching, and 4 uninterested people who were only there for a drink. The uninterested people then left, to be replaced by 4 army guys who had just been in the tattoo (they get £2.50 a day extra for this apparently) they didn’t like what I was doing at all, so I amused myself a bit by dedicating a song about bumming to one of them (hooray for bravery), confusing one of them with talk of numbers and playing “What’s the worm eaten?” with them. For me, there has been no funnier moment in my show than watching 4 huge soldiers scratching their heads and shouting out names of animals! They were nice enough blokes, I just think they’d have preferred Chubby Brown or something like that. Oh, and the manager heckled me…
So I went home, trying not to think about it too much. Then a nice lady saw me at the crossroads and told me we’d crossed it the other way earlier, she thought I’d been playing at the church so I gave her a flyer and told her about my recent misfortune. She said she’d put it up at work :o) this made me slightly more cheerful. Then I saw a man who looked rather lost, so I asked him if her was lost and he said no, just working out which road to go down next. It was then that I realised it was Mathew Kelly! We had a chat about the Fringe and stuff as we walk down the hill, he’s not done the Fringe since the 60s, but did 4 shows a day then and can’t really tell if it’s changed much. He was a very nice man, said the F word a lot and had huge hands. We also flyered each other. It was at this point that I decided I probably hadn’t got up yet, and this was all some kind of freaky dream, in a minute I would wake up in bed and have to go out flyering before my first show of the run… I was mistaken, and most definitely awake. To make amends for my earlier failings, I got a spot at Kate Smurthwaite’s late show at the Meercat, where I had a jolly nice time and nice people laughed at my nice jokes. Hoorah!
Then in the morning I got up, went out and did some flyering, had about 3 people I didn’t know in the audience and a few more who were friends, family or other acts and had a lovely gig, I also ran out of time (the first time this had happened) and had to miss out a load of my jokes. Hopefully I’ll have more like this one. Someone also put up a nice review of one of my preview shows here: http://www.edfringe.com/reviews/read.html?id=5202 if you’ve also seen my show and want to leave a (fair) review - please do. Biased reviews are also welcome, but fair ones are preferred!
I’m working today, and for the next two days after that, so it’ll be fairly manic for a while. Then I’m trying to organise a Scrabble night for the weekend. Mmmm Scrabble!
See you soon,
Owen