Tuesday 9 August 2016

Three Show Tuesday

As Ronan Keating once said, "life is a rollercoaster and you just have to ride it". A song beyond terrible in nearly every respect but one that summed up today simply because it has the word "rollercoaster" in it. Which is probably why it's been used in countless adverts requiring a base-level metaphor ever since.

I digress. So this morning my friend Richard and I clambered to the top of Arthur's Seat to enjoy the view then headed down to the National Museum to learn that a Scottish company once made bicycles and that long ago they beheaded nearly 4,000 women for being witches. I'm summarising but I'm pretty sure that's the gist they wanted me to take away from it.

Feeling educated I headed to The Southsider to flyer for Mirthquake only to find they were out of Wee Blue Books - the official PBH Free Fringe guide that should be given out with all flyers and has proved instrumental in getting people to take our flimsy bits of paper as the books are actually quite useful. A trip to Tron (a pub down the street sadly devoid of light cycles) revealed they had no books either but I found a pile across the road at Whistlebinkies. Flyering was therefore somewhat delayed but I gave out all the books and assisted a couple of retired ladies in locating a venue on their map. Once located they realised they'd missed the start of the show and came to Mirthquake instead. Result!

So Mirthquake (pictured) was pretty busy for a Tuesday afternoon. 22 people in all. Despite being lower in number than our Saturday debut we actually made more money with three CDs walking out the door. I was ready to head over to The Hanover Tap for a spot at the 101 Comedy Club run by Ian Miller.

The club was packed out with at least 50 people in there and the PA was louder than it had been on my last visit. The quality of acts was good and I was looking forward to my set. The intro went well and I went into the first song. Response was muted. A ripple of applause greeted the final word. A group of girls in the front row were loving it but elsewhere people seemed completely oblivious to what was going on. I talked things up and headed into 1 Shot. Response was even worse. With no easy way to split the room I tried getting women to say "1" and men to say "2". The girls on the front row were loud and enthusiastic. Almost no men said anything at all. I left to gentle claps somewhat deflated. 

To compound the misery I was then asked by venue staff to exit-flyer outside the venue (rather than at the exit to the room) because my show wasn't hosted in their venue. Easily the most mean-spirited thing that's happened to me in this run so far and utterly pointless as I still flyered every last person 10 metres on from where I would have done so anyway. Someone claimed this was Laughing Horse (the other promoter of pay-what-you-like shows at the fringe) policy but I haven't seen it in evidence anywhere else I've been. Nevermind that half the point of doing compilation shows is to promote your own. Awful.

Following the show, Richard commented that my vocal hadn't been loud enough over the backing track and that scuppered the performance for all but those in acoustic range of my voice (which made sense given the girls at the front). These things are bound to happen once in a while and it was my fault for being too late to do a soundcheck really. You live, you learn.

My mood picked up after a burger and chips in Grassmarket and I headed to City Cafe in plenty of time to do a soundcheck. The place filled respectably to about sixty people and, as usual, the other acts were great. My set went down really well with plenty of joining in and laughter in all the right places. I would have a killer video but Aaron Levene unknowingly sat in front of my camera. Doh. Pretty much everyone took a flyer so fingers crossed for Wednesday's Mirthquake. 

Shows Performed: 3 (11)
Bums on seats at Mirthquake: 22 (98)
Money in the Mirthquake bucket: £39.50 (£123.47)
Steps walked according to my pedometer: 24,213 (142,560) 

CDs Remaining: 92

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