Brighton up Your Day.


I’m currently on the train back from Brighton to London, after the first of our two shows on the Brighton Fringe.

Tonight went well, with a better turnout and response than we’d expected. It can be hard to know how a show will go on the Free Fringe; the fact that the audience hasn’t paid can often lead to a stilted reaction. They haven’t invested in your performance – and may not even see a flyer before they come in.

People often assume that a free show will be shit. They’ll sometimes even say this to your face. This happened once when I was flyering for our 2010 Edinburgh Fringe show, ‘Big in Small Places’. It was towards the end of the run and I’d lost the will to live; there’s nothing quite like repeatedly handing out photos of yourself for lowering morale.

“So, you’re a comedian?” slurred the pissed potential punter.
“Allegedly.”
“Tell me a joke.”
“Come and see our show later and I’ll tell you some then.”

I hoped he wouldn’t take me up on my offer; I could tell from our conversation that the show wasn’t for him.

“Tell me a joke” he insisted (in bold and italics for emphasis).
“We don’t do jokes, we make observations.” I’d lost him by this point.
“I can’t be good if it’s free anyway” he spat. “It must be shit.”

I don’t think he was prepared for the dressing down that followed. Never cross a sleep-deprived performer at the end of the Edinburgh Festival.

Thankfully we had none of this tonight. The audience's possible lack of prior knowledge seemed to work in our favour. There are a few creases to iron out before Sunday, but the show’s in good shape. We even had a couple of tenners in the donation bucket, which was nice.

We won’t retire on them just yet.

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