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All right I’ve given this Edinburgh Fringe things 26 goes - I just don’t think it’s for me.
Well OK, look, I’ll give it another 35 years, but after that I might try and do something else.
But I am getting too old for this shit. Only five days in and I am already wrecked and loading myself with coffee and sugar just to get through this thing. Thank God I am only doing twelve shows. I have loved doing my show so far and enjoyed all the stuff I’ve seen too, but this is really a young performer’s game and I am also slightly uneasy about how much money people now need to spend to come and appear at or watch. I do want to try and work up a new stand up show and I’d quite like to do something with the puppets, but I have to accept that I don’t have the energy for multiple performances and maybe not even daily performances and I also have to look after my stupid kids. Perhaps there is another way.
But how many Fringe blogs have I written where I wondered if I should ever come back here? Even this relatively cushy Fringe is hard on the soul though. I jest when I say the Fringe is not for me, but I have been through a lot here and much of it has been quite a challenge and sometimes I wonder why I put myself through it again. Good to see that I go through the seven stages of Fringe even when I am only up for 12 days and barely participating in it.
I am glad to say that the quality of the Fringe podcasts is not suffering. They’ve all been good so far and I think the decision to only have one guest (or a double act) for the full hour was the right one. Today I got to talk to my old pal and fellow cancer survivor (though equating what I went through with her own story seems deeply wrong) Janey Godley. We’re both a little less than we were on our last podcast meeting in 2019, prompting me to wonder if someone out there is attempting to make an hermaphrodite Frankingstein comedian out of all the discarded bits of comedian. Janey was very funny about her experience, though it was a whole lot more serious than mine and whilst I have a 5% chance of a return of my pretty much treatable cancer, she has an 80% chance of hers coming back. I don’t rate cancer’s chances against this formidable woman, but she is philosophical and honest about it all. She rejects those calling her brave, as she admits she was terrified by the whole experience and I think that’s an important point to make. People aren’t brave in the face of this stuff and it’s not a battle that can be won or lost through nobility or determination. You are lucky or unlucky and it’s something that when it happens you just have to pragmatically get through. As comedians we will get some laughs along the way and find the funny stories, but she’s right, neither of us were brave. And my story is the equivalent of someone scraping their knee versus someone breaking all the bones in their legs compared to Janey.
I am delighted she is still here. She has had quite the time since we last met and so this was always going to be an interesting chat. The way she responded to her own stupid and offensive tweets of a decade ago was classy and I have always felt that if we can’t forgive those who sincerely apologise for their mistakes then we are lost. Unless we have made no mistakes in our own life. But when you dig down you discover that nearly everyone who refuses to forgive is actually upset about something else.
Janey is a tough human being and has been through some stuff in her life.
I went to see Flo and Joan tonight ahead of their appearance of RHLSTP tomorrow and it was an impressive and fun performance in front of an enthusiastic and large crowd. They’re a great act, with a lot more depth than you might assume if you are prejudiced towards musical comedy or female performers. It’s smart and dense (in the non non-smart sense) and cool as fuck. Even though they think they aren’t cool. That’s why it’s cool. To an old 55 year old dad anyway.
