Edinblog: End-inburgh

I arrived back in London last night on the late train, on which I spent the whole journey reading and sleeping and thinking, “I should write an update”.

I think I had a good Edinburgh. I liked my show a lot and audiences als enjoyed it. I sold tickets. The show itself felt like a nice balance between saying something interesting, with a high gag-rate (lots of jokes), that had a heart and truth and yet wasn’t entirely gutting myself onstage.

I got to see the fabulous work of strangers and friends (who didn’t clash with me), and that was wonderful. The weather was mostly very lovely, which was relaxing, apart from the inevitably inspired worries about climate change and the fact that the castle-basement-venue I was performing in was built for long cold winters and in the presence of sun and human body heat spontaneously turned itself into a sauna.

Some cultures cultivate sweaty heat-based spiritual experiences, and I sort of wish I’d studied how they made it work, because above a certain temperature, Comedy is borderline unworkable, and a few nights were pretty heavy lifting. Unworkable is not entirely accurate. You can froth up a sort of frenzied laughter that borders on crowd hysteria, but I’m not quite that kind of act. Maybe next year, I’ll be a bit more froth-whippy or insist on a room with better air conditioning. Whichever seems easier.

I wasn’t very good at the other half of edinburgh which is staying out late and meeting fancy people and impressing them into coming to your shows. I know that’s a big part of what makes a good and successful edinburgh for a lot of people. With 4000 shows, it can make a massive difference. Maybe next year I will just commit to drinking more caffeine and being more sociable late at night or organise to have fewer gigs early in the day.

I did enjoy doing a lot of gigs, lineup shows, bugles and a couple of teacasts (though I wasn’t very good at chasing famous fancy people, for those of you who are into that, I’m sorry).

There are many people to thank for the lovely times I had at places other than parties, having tea and brunch and walks and talks and watching shows. I will tell them in person, because these kinds of lists are always incomplete and weird. The more people you mention, the less special each one feels. But you don’t want to leave anyone out. But you absolutely will leave someone out.

Now. Today I rest. Tomorrow I do Savage at the Museum of Comedy.

Tickets look like they will sell out and I’m trying to remember who I said I’d give comps to. My post edinburgh brain’s a little bit on thin ice. Everything looks fine but the moment I try to skate out onto a thought or lean into some administrative catch-up, I get ominous creaking noises.

Day off is important. Does writing this count as breaking day off?