Stevie Martin on the best and the worst of the Edinburgh Fringe

Stevie Martin is at the Edinburgh Fringe performing her show Clout at Monkey Barrel at 3.35pm.  Here she shares what she can't get enough of at the festival, her most embarrassing Edinburgh experience and the worst thing about the Fringe. Apart from the cost of accommodation, obviously…

Edinburgh binge

This Fringe, I hope to be bingeing on non-Fringe related activities. Going for a pub lunch in Leith. Watching a film at the cinema. Reading 12 books. Cooking lasagne? If it keeps me from reading my reviews, I will be mainlining it into my soul and body. 

Edinburgh cringe

Probably during my incredibly hard debut run when the venue tech couldn’t turn the projector on, so I had to cancel my (projector-heavy) show that day. To say sorry they gave me a bottle of wine, and when I went to the venue bar to drink it, the bar staff kicked me out for ‘bringing my own alcohol’.

I tried to explain, but she just kept telling me to leave, so I sat outside the venue on the road and drank the wine by some bins while sobbing. 

There was a moment where I tried to pull myself together, stood up and noticed the bin was comically full of my flyers (as in the flyerer I was paying had just dumped them all in there) so I sat back down and drank the entire bottle of wine. It was a very bad day. 

Edinburgh whinge

Oh my god, the bit of the day where there’s 45 minutes till you need to be somewhere.

No matter how well you plan your day, suddenly there will not be enough time to go home, not be enough time to have a meal, but way too much time to just sit and have a stare because everywhere’s busy and loud and your phone is dying. Also it’s raining and boiling hot. 

During these moments, I end up in the Pleasance Courtyard sat on a bench with a silent German family. This isn’t a solution, it’s just my reality. 

Published: 31 Jul 2024