The Hills Have Eyes. Poor Craig's poster outside the Udderbelly's been slightly amended. Looks like someone's given him more than an inch.
Edinburgh 2014 has started well, with more punters out there to be flyered than I remember at this stage in previous years. And, from Wednesday through Friday, good enough weather to do it in, though Saturday saw a day of rain through which we still flyered vailiantly. The Socks had a sellout on Friday and were 14 short of one on Sunday.
I've bumped into a ton of comedians and familiar faces during my flyering, far too numerous to mention, and here was one of the more unusual faces I met. The chap on your right is Michael Davies, who I recognised instantly as the captain of the runner up team in this year's University Challenge, Somerville. Now singing with acappella group The Alternotives.
As I did last year, I've lined up a series of Comic Art Masterclasses in libraries while I'm in Edinburgh, which does mean my flyering will be hit, giving a commensurate knock in sales, but earning me the equivalent to my lost ticket sales in earnings so balancing it up. Also I get the school money in September, whereas I can be kept waiting months longer for my Fringe settlement. Not that you need to know these boring facts, but whatever, you do now. There's me drawing a flipchart at Currie Library (and in the afternoon I was in Colinton). In neither place could I find a copy of this week's Beano, which is eluding me the length and breadth of Edinburgh. Frustratingly, as I happen to know my Pansy Potter is in this week's issue.
Here's the front row from Saturday night's show, featuring Hazel and Tim and enough of their fanily and friends to fill a row. Thankyou sock fans. But what is it with that blue light you get from LEDs? It makes for horrible effects in photos doesn't it? And behind the Socks set it means that, while I'm waiting for the show to start, I can't tell Sock props apart because they're all the same colour. Probably not a widely shared problem that, is it?
The new show finally fell into place on Friday night when I radically rewrote Macbeth to change it from being the "straight" adaptation of the story, which was getting a bit overlong and laughless in places, to a new short allegory about the Scottish independence debate. Makes less sense, is sillier, shorter, and has some great new gags that I wrote just a couple of hours before performing them at our first sellout of the run. It's what Edinburgh's all about.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre ...And So Am I is at the Edinburgh Fringe 2014, July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm
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