Preview Day

Today is a preview day. Today is a preview day. Today is a preview day.

It's important to have mantras you repeat when you're stood on the street with a laurel wreath on your head and the situation looks pretty dire. 

The good news was it had stopped raining. On the other hand, the streets weren't in any way bustling. Spanish tourists eyed my flyers with confusion before muttering, "no thank you," whilst serious-faced Scots rolled their eyes as they passed. Clash of the Tight Tens at its 12:15pm slot is very much for the early riser or artistically-minded family. These markets, at least today, appeared to be rather smaller than I'd hoped.

Showtime rolled around and audience numbers totalled 4. Suddenly, as if descended by a divine intervention, 6 middle aged women came to Espionage and started to eye the events timetable outside with interest. I stepped in, smiled a lot, waved my pieces of paper about and sold them Live At The Apollo if it happened to be in small cave populated by outsider artists.

With 10 in the room it was a good show. Jonny Gillam (pictured) performed alongside Taco, John-Paul Mcque, Fiona Sagar and Tom Little. The audience were entertained mostly, slightly baffled at times. Classic Tight-Tens. £33 in the bucket.

A spot of lunch later, I was back out on the street handing out FWP flyers to ever-more baffled passers by. There were more people about but there were also a lot more people handing out bits of paper. Competition in the area was hotting up. Someone gave me a flyer for their show with no venue or time on it. There's being exclusive and then there's being elusive. This fell into the latter category.

First World Problems (Preview) kicked off to two people at 2.45. Shortly after starting, the audience doubled thanks to some jolly ladies from Fife joining us. As shows go it was pretty odd. An audience of 4 and a stage area the size of a postage stamp isn't ideal. However, we had a good time and so did the quartet watching us. £19 in the bucket (£10 of which from one particularly involved crew member) and some nice words later we headed out into the light.