Edinblog Day 16, 17, 18: Bin Strikes and Saturday Nights. Quiet parts and loud parts.

I think Friday night audiences may have redeemed themselves for me - I’ve always been a fan of the Thursday night audience, but I have to say this year they’ve trended a little bit sitting-back-you-do-the-work-theatre-type-crowds, while Friday nights (often on the angry/tired vibe side) have been a genuine delight.

Bear in mind when I talk about the vibe or mood of a audience that I’m not talking about any individual in the audience: as an individual in an audience you’re as much a victim of the vibe as I am. Your contribution is cumulative, and even the most determinedly loud laughers and aggressively joyful moodsters cannot stand alone against a vibe tide. I’ve loved many a show quietly from a quiet crowd, while knowing how much harder the quiet makes the work for the comedian.

The best way I can articulate the impact of a quiet crowd on an edinburgh hour is that it turns the work of a show from the tricky showing-off of telling a cool complicated thing to an encouraging and enthusiastic friend into the grim urgency of accounting for oneself before a silent authority figure. Sometimes a smiling authority figure - nicer. Sometimes a blank faced one, which can sometimes tip the whole experience into something existential. Am I doing comedy? Have I only imagined that I’m talking out loud? Why can I hear next door’s audience better than my own? Have I left my ears in that room? (The noise bleed in my venue is something epic).

Anyway. Saturday I was worried about the opposite - the mood in the streets was aggressively drunken as I walked to my show, and when I entered my room, there was glass and spilled drinks and an empty bottle of wine on the floor. I was nervous. My show’s at 9.15 and if some group of people who’ve been drinking since brunch decide to descend on me, then it’s likely I’ll have to cut big chunks out of the narrative in order to make space to deal with them. So I was mentally highlighting cuts and glue that I’d have to use to patchwork over lost bits if I did have to lose 5-10 minutes or what ways I could respond to hecklers or drunken sound effects that would tie into the themes of the show (thus doing double duty and saving me from having to make up so much ground).

I asked the Gilded Balloon door staff if they’d put someone by the door in case something went awry. I was really nervous, and trying to pre-empt trouble. I felt like if I had a good plan, nothing would go wrong. And if something did go wrong, I’d have the plan!

Nothing went wrong. It was a sold out lovely crowd, and my nerves were needless. Or maybe the nice gilded balloon kid standing inside the door prevented any shenanigans, or maybe the crowd work I did before the show helped head it off or maybe nothing was ever going to go wrong. We will never know.

There’s rubbish all over the streets of edinburgh. An encroachment from the outside world with its terrible real world problems. Not just who’s getting nominated for what and who’s getting five stars or putting on extra shows. Real stuff like how waste disposal workers can afford heating this winter. The tide of the festival is receding and the wrack on the sand is being exposed. I can see the melancholy of post-festival in the nearer distance.

I wonder if it will be more or less after I put this show to bed, given how long it’s been in the world. Two and a half years since I decided to write a show called chronos and in a week it’ll be done.

(Apart from the 11 September at the Museum of Comedy where I’ll be filming it!!!! I haven’t properly plugged that! Come! Send friends! Oh no!!!! Tickets here!!!)

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Til next time!

Xx

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