Celya AB on the best and worst of Edinburgh

Celya AB is heading to the Edinburgh Fringe with her show Of All People, which will be at Pleasance Courtyard at 5.20pm.  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

I love the Edinburgh Fringe for many reasons, one of them is that I love a deadline. 

I didn’t go to university and I get distracted easily. Writing deadlines allow me to find focus, without them the pen would float like in 2001 A Space Odyssey. 

I love making things and especially finishing a project. My comfort YouTubers are building and restoration channels, just lots of hour-long videos of people finishing various tasks they’ve imposed on themselves (hard rec for I Made a Miniature Howl's Moving Castle Out of Junk, 17million views, come on now). 

In lockdown, I was furloughed for a month, and seriously contemplated ordering a sandblaster. A purchase only stopped by my flatmate gently suggesting that I ‘go outside’.

I love that everyone is working on their show, the pre-Edinburgh routine, and the green room chat too, how easy it makes conversations. Last year, I’d gotten so used to the Edinburgh chat karaoke, that I asked a comic if they were going to the Fringe, at the Fringe. 

Edinburgh cringe

In 2019, myself and another comic took a double header, confidently titled The Next, Next Big Thing for the full month to a venue two doors down from the Stand. 

We soon noticed that pre-show flyering had slowly turned us into ushers, directing people to the venue they were actually looking for, The Stand. We could not get an audience and cancelled enough shows that in the end we ended up just about knocking on the door of a two-week run. 

On one of the last dates, two extremely glamorous British women in their 50s turned up. Behind the thin stage curtain we could clearly hear their excitement about our show, how their friend had seen it and had been raving about it since. That’s it, we’d found our audience, all the annual leave I’d accrued that year doing overtime each day at my office job in Smethwick had been worth it, soon we’d be crowdsurfing the rose-gold ocean. 

I went on first, clearly giddy. Within minutes, I started to make out confused polite smiles between the sequins. Eventually a hand was raised and one of them asked, with all the kindness in the world, ‘Sorry my love, is this not the Dolly Parton Story?’

I contemplated singing 9 To 5, aware I’d have to change it to 9 to 6:30 for authenticity but could not, for the life of me, remember the first verse. 

We cancelled the show, I directed them to the right venue, reassured them they could still make it on time and off they went. In February 2021, as Moderna entered my veins, what started flowing through my mind was ‘Tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen…'

Edinburgh whinge

I’ve been coming to the Fringe in some capacity since 2018 and every year it’s the Anchor To Reflecting On The Year Just Gone. 

Every street corner is associated with a memory, falling in love, heartbreak, siding with Jolene on the walk home from a terrible show; but also some of the best laughs I’ve ever had, the warm Week 4 hugs in the Courtyard and cash-only meals at Noodles & Dumplings.  So dense with everyone’s memories it’s like wading through water. 

That being said, each year, the very first sight of the historic city of Edinburgh when coming out of the station to get a cab, is the dissonant Brewhemia.

Published: 23 Jul 2024