I woke up at about 8am after another restless night and was a bit grumpy and snarled at my girlfriend a bit. In certain circumstances she likes that kind of thing, but this time sensibly beat a hasty retreat and left me to grouch to myself. Although there was loads of noise from outside and from Justin Moorhouse opening and slamming doors every five seconds (he only does it to try and undermine me), I came up with the genius idea of putting on my noise cancelling headphones and managed to fall back to sleep. I may have looked like I was grooving out to tunes, or was a baby being protected from the live sounds of Mumford and Sons, but in fact I was listening to the sound of silence and snoozing.
And a good job I did. I slept in until well after midday and felt a whole lot better for it. My depression and bad temper came about not because of reviews but because of exhaustion. And four hours of extra sleep had done the job. A reassuring
4 star review in the Mirror helped ease any jitters I had been having. But I am more than happy with the show. It divided the journos last time I seem to remember.
After going out for lunch again (I went for the healthy cod, but it was covered in butter and my healthy stomach almost couldn't cope with it) and picking up some groceries, I had intended to go to the gym, but tiredness was overwhelming me again and I decided to rest up and hope I could get back to full strength again first. I thought that Fringe exhaustion came about because of hangovers, but it's clearly to do with the stresses and pressures of performing. And Christ on a Bike is a pretty full on hour of energy and shouting. The audience were a little slow to warm up today and it took a couple of beats longer for most jokes to permeate into their brains, but when I waited the laugh was there. And they did relax and get more into it as time passed. I really enjoyed myself, but annoyingly forgot to mention about the SCOPE buckets, but luckily enough people knew the score so I still took over £100. But I was kicking myself because I probably cost the charity over £100 because of my forgetfulness.
I have barely been out after the show at all, but tonight walked up to the Pleasance Dome (where COAB was first performed) for a bottle of water with friends. Passing the young Fringe performers cavorting in the streets, as well as the venue I first performed in (Abbey Laird, which is no longer open at Fringe time) made me feel old and a little bit maudlin, but also somehow at the centre of it all, weirdly content. Time passes and it's strange and sad, but it's better than it stopping because you're dead. I wished I had had more fun when I was young and had been less of a fuddy duddy prick, but I have made up for it in the intervening years I guess and I was happy for these children to be experiencing this magical, horrible and ridiculous festival for the first time. My first appearance here is as distant to them as Beyond the Fringe would have been when I was first here. That sends a shudder through me.
It was good to be out, even if I was still a little bit too sleepy to have too much fun and I met a couple of comedians and enjoyed looking round the wonderful mural of stars past and future that still graces the interior (and exterior now - where you will see a caricature of me) of this venue. It was painted, funnily enough, by Andrew Collings' school chum Paul Garner. It's rather brilliant, even to a man already contemplating the unstoppable cruelty of the passage of time.
At least the walk up the hill and back made up a little for my gym laziness, but by the time I was home (just before 2) I was rather daunted by the stairs up to the flat. Jesus, we're not even a week in yet. And I haven't done a single one of the 11 podcasts that I have foolishly agreed to make up or write and appear in while I am here.
But that's all the cheap preview shows out of the way at least and now things are up to full price it will be interesting to see how sales are. It's all been very good so far.
Fuck knows when I am going to write my new radio series though. Ah well, one thing at a time!
