Dear Diary...
Andrew Clover's Edinburgh diary
Andrew is appearing in Supercub at the Pleasance Courtyard at 21:45
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Dear Diary...Andrew Clover's Edinburgh diary Andrew is appearing in Supercub at the Pleasance Courtyard at 21:45 |
Sunday July 2710pm. Final preview in a packed sweaty cellar in Bath. They laugh wildly at the comedy, they clap each improvisation, they listen with huddled attention to the serious bits I've put in to give the Edinburgh run a critical success. At the end, loud cheers. three punters offer drinks and huddle round and tell me their jokes. I'm offered a run of more gigs. Surely Edinburgh will be great. Monday July 281am. Typical post-gig scene. I'm in a service station eating heated toasties. I see Jack magazine which gives me a good write up: "Loose cannon Set to be the most interesting show of 2003". It's all going to be good. Drink two coffees. Buy Roy Chubby Brown tape. Me and Chubby, we are brothers. Lonely troubadours wandering the land with our jokes. 2am Driving round roundabouts at 100 mph listening to Chubby Brown. Speed through Archway, North London, leaving a trail of insomniacs wondering what the filthy man's punchline was. They should read a book of Bob Hope jokes: most of them are in there. OK, that's not fair. Chubby's inserted the word 'cunt'. I like him though. I'd like to be able to work a crowd of 1,000 every night. It's not enough to be able to rock a room of students; I want to be the next Chubby Brown. 10am. Playing with Grace my oldest daughter (19 months). She seems to know something is up, and she wants me to carry me round the house, wherever I'm going. She almost cuddles me, which is very very rare. Normally, I long for her to cuddle me, but she never does. If she's very tired, she'll lean her massive head on me, and I can pretend. It's all I want, the illusion of love. I'd be prepared to drug her if necessary. Calpol, heroin for toddlers. For now I carry her. I boil the kettle, and she goes "ooof", as she always does, to tell me that the kettle is hot. My girlfriend is very worried. How is she going to look after two kids, alone, for a month? Developing an Edinburgh show takes four months work, and even though I've sold out the last three years, I've never made a penny. Why am I going? 5pm on the train to Edinburgh. Passing Almouth, the beautiful town by the sea. Every year I gaze out of the window, and long to go and stay there. It looks so quiet and reassuring. A place of beaches and donuts. But I'm off to Edinburgh. We pass the border. The landscape grows more mountainous. I feel myself growing hairier, more savage, more Celtic. I want to get pissed, I want to hold my friends in a headlock, and shout 'I love you, you wee Bastard'. We're arriving. We're going to be there The Festival, Place of Dreams. I remember why I love it The Festival is... standing in a queue for a hot potato at 2am, talking to a girl dressed as a bunny costume, and you're telling her you're definitely, definitely going to see her dance production of the Hungarian classic. The Festival is... finding yourself in a late night drinking place at 3.30 am, hugging a strange man. You're ecstatic, you're saying "let's hang out together, for ever, making TV shows, with me as the star. Here, give me your number'. The next day, you empty some crushed leaflets from your pocket, and you see a biro scrawl in the corner, and you think: "Who the hell is Roy Damson?"
7pm Edinburgh. It's empty and grey. Thin smackies standing outside Greggs The Bakers begging for money. Tramps sitting on benches in the Meadows, surrounded by plastic cider bottles. No sign of the Festival. Find my sister who's putting me up. 9pm. I take my sister out to dinner, along with her new boyfriend, Phil, and their friend James. She shows me The List, which offers 50 Shows You'd Be A Fool To Miss. No mention of me. No sign of the advert I paid 300 quid for. The Festival hasn't started: already I've been forgotten. Tuesday July 29I go for a long walk with Raff, my border terrier, who is accompanying me at the festival again. Her third. She's especially keen to get up Arthur's Seat, so she can scout for rabbits. She's heard that there's some very exciting young talent this year. She spies them, yips, and gives chase. Doesn't catch for now. But by the end of the festival, she'll have a lovely selection of rabbits, and she'll take them home and put them in a sketch show. Posters are going up round the town. No sign of my one: Andrew Clover, SuperCub. A terrifying number of big names are here though. It used to be the case that you had a good Edinburgh, you went off to London, and you did sitcoms, and you'd no more return to Edinburgh than you'd return to a bed you'd been sick in. Now everyone's here. I will be competing for audiences with Adam Hills, Daniel Kitson, Jason Byrne, Bill Bailey, Bradley Walsh, Ross Noble How is anyone going to come? I have a problem. Essentially, this is me, as a Festival act. Three years ago, I was going to do a three man show at the Gilded, at 5pm. The 2 acts dropped out with a month to go, and I wrote Maurice Clark, A Man of Substance in a World of Filth: a character comedy piece, in which I played an egotistical weirdo who thinks he's the reincarnation of Jonathan Swift. Every reviewer came and raved. Next year, I arrived with what I believed would be the most exciting festival show ever. I'd tell a true love story, but then I'd go mad on stage brilliantly subverting my on-stage persona I'd strip naked and rant; I'd show a film in which I throw myself out of plane; I'd conduct a séance onstage. I was confident this would make me. Every reviewer came, and hated it. Except Copstick of the Scotsman, who raved. Now it was obvious that I really am a deranged egotist. Last year, I did a gameshow, in which I tried to recreate the experience of a six-year old party. I got people up and made them fight each other with cream. No reviewer came, except Copstick of the Scotsman, who raved. Now people in the street were stopping me and saying: "Is it true you've slept with Kate Copstick?" This year I'm doing a stand-up show. More conventional in form, but if it's got something to offer, it's that it's funny, and offers a degree of truth and intellect that should be exciting. How do you sell that? I've got one hope. I've employed Mel Brown, a legend amongst Edinburgh PRs, the most pushy, persuasive woman in the town. Surely she will pin journalists against walls until they promise to come. She is my hope. OK, she missed all my London previews, and hasn't yet seen me, but she's my hope.
Wednesday July 30 5pm. Call Hils, my manager. Apparently 30 people have bought tickets for the first show. That's a good number, since most people walk up and buy, and then many more get leafleted and enticed in. That should translate into 75 people about the number I had for the previews last year. The gig starts in four hours, but will it be good? I plunge into worry and crisis. Am I funny? Have I ever been funny? Has anyone ever been funny? What is funny? Is it truth, is it fantasy? Is it being kind, is it being cruel? If I wash my hair, will I be funny? 9.45 pm. I should be onstage. I've got clean hair. Jason Byrne arrives. Two years ago, we shared the Cavern together, and so I'd see him as I left the stage, and he was coming on. Every night, he had the same anxiety. "Oh no," he'd say, "I've no energy at all". At first I'd take his word for it, and I'd rush out and buy him a coke or a Red Bull. But of course I never ever saw Jason come onstage, without energy. No one has. It's never happened. Every comedian has a series of devils whose job it is to whisper in their ears, and screw everything up. Jason's devil tells him he has no energy; mine just tells me I need to piss; and that I'm shit, and should stop improvising. I give Jason a hug. He's on the way to Pleasance 1: he's one of the many huge acts who are hoovering up all the audiences. "By the way, Jason," I whisper, "you've got loads of energy". He grins at me. "So do you, Andrew. Have a good show". 9.50 pm. Brendon Burns is still talking. He seems to
be trying to a three-hour show. Can someone rush the stage and
drag the Australian off? He seems to be going down well. 10.10 pm. At last. Finally I'm lying under the set, listening to my entry music Louis Prima. It's too quiet. The audience rumble in overhead. There are 30 of them. 30! We didn't get any walk-ups at all. Not one person was enticed in by a leafleter. The last two years, I've sold out 150 seats. Where have they gone? 10.15pm. Come onstage. They cheer. Instantly I relax. I love it on the Cavern stage: this is my home, this is where we conjure dreams. They laugh at the first jokes. Mel leaves. The audience turn and look at her. They show goes fine. The audience laugh all the way through a small audience laughing as much as they can. 11 30pm. In the courtyard. Reunited with loads of friends I only ever see at the Festival. Drink beer, and slip into a fuggy beery warmth. Ah yes! This is what the Festival is about! The joy of it! I recognise a journalist who I've had a problem with two years ago. She was irritated that I used a review totally out of context. She was being ironic, and didn't mention me by name, but she said something very rude. I used it; I thought it made me sound controversial. I didn't think that it would make her look unreasonable. In retrospect, I understand her point. She's also worried, it seems, that I might hold a grudge against her. I really don't. I like what she writes, always read her stuff, enjoy it. Besides, I'm a comedian. I have so much self-hatred, I don't have any left over for anyone else. The irony is that comedians always take reviews out of context: "He has stupendous arrogance" becomes "stupendous". I then made things worse, by writing the journalist a letter, asking her to see my next show. Advice to any new comedians out there: don't do this. It alarms the critic if you write to them. It's not the way to get them to come. I don't know how you should get journalists to come. Journalists don't come. Let's all accept that. They watch Bill Bailey. Let's all accept that. I decide I should speak to the journalist. She's obviously worried that I'm a bit of a psycho, with a grudge against her. I think the best thing would be to just say I recognise her from her picture, and we can chat a few moments. I'll be calm, and slightly friendly, not too much, I'll ask if she's seen some good shows, I'll go Perfect strategy. I approach. I say hello. Amazingly, she's friendly. But there's a twist. I'm surprised to discover that I find her alarmingly attractive. I chat five minutes, but then stay there. I don't know what my strategy is now. I don't know what hers is. This is the Festival now, rules are different. There's monogamy, there's open relationships, and there's Edinburgh. What am I playing at? I suppose it's a typically Edinburgh dynamic. I want to flirt, just enough, so that she'll see the show. She'll let me flirt, just enough, so she knows I don't have a grudge. We chat 20 minutes, and I go. 2am. Bed.
Thursday July 318am. I'm dreaming that I'm sitting in the bath with Cassidy, my youngest daughter (four months old). Suddenly the bath fills right to the top. Suddenly Cassidy's head is blue. I've killed my child. I wake up suddenly, and my head goes into overdrive and it has only one obsession: I need more leafleters. Of course no one came to the show, no one was leafleting. I speak to Hils and ask her about sales. I've sold about 30 tickets for the first 5 days, but bizarrely none for today, the second day. I tell her we need leafleters. She says leafleters don't achieve anything: there's no one around. 11am. Pleasance Press Launch. I arrive, and buy coffee to anyone I meet. I bump into the journalist, and we sit beside each other, smoking fags, drinking coffee, and she tells me funny stories about her young child. We're friends now. I love Edinburgh. I love the friendliness of it. It's like Christmas Eve, when suddenly strangers start to chat to each other on buses. It's a place of friendship and communication. 11.30 am. Go into the theatre for the Pleasance show. I see Alexis Dubus at the end of one row, a young comic I like. I make for him. I push past the knees of the person sitting next to the aisle. Realise it's the journalist. I sit down next to her, tell Alexis to move up, he tells me to come down, and I go. So, in the space of two seconds, I ignored the journalist, bumped into her, sat beside her, then left her What the hell am I doing? I'm behaving like a nine-year-old with a crush. What will I do next? Give her a dead arm? Try and impress her by eating a worm? No one is ever going to review my show. 1pm Bump into Rachel, my lovely tech, who's leafleting. I take a few leaflets, and help her. There's loads of people around. They all laugh, and all want to come. One group all piss themselves, because we agree that they can all come for free if they bring garden animals with them in little jars. Another group saw my last show, and it was their favourite of the festival. Leafleting is easy. I go to the ATM, to get some cash, so I can employ extra leafleters. I'm £2,300 overdrawn, with no income, for my family of four, due to come in at all. I take out 100 quid. 10pm. Waiting under the stage, listening to Louis Prima, played too quiet. The audience arrive. There's 40 of them. I come onstage, and something strange happens. I start to enjoy myself. The show goes well. I see a journalist there making notes, but, sadly, no sign of Mel. The show is going well, and there'll be a review. Perfect. At the end, loud cheers. I even come on for a second bow. 11 pm. I have a beer in the courtyard with some guys who saw the show. I meet the guy who was writing notes. Nicholas Barber, of the Independent on Sunday. He asks if I've any tips, and I tell him about Lizzie Roper, Through the Keyhole, on at the Teviot, 6.20pm. She's doing a one woman show which she first described to me five months ago. She planned to play five characters; between them she'd play different films; the whole thing to be linked by a true story which involves her search for identity after a childhood spent amongst North London mums pissed up on G and T. Five months ago, I reckoned the show would be great, but she'd never get it ready. Too complicated. Five months later, it is ready; I saw her do a blinding preview at the Etcetera Camden. Now I reckon she could be a Perrier Best Newcomer. 11.30pm. I'm doing that Courtyard Walk. You're walking through the crowd, hoping to see someone you recognise, or hoping that someone will approach you and say they enjoyed the show. Performing comedy generates cocaine in your system: onstage, you know everything; immediately afterwards, you want to hug people and ask them: "was that alright? Was it OK? Should I die?" I find Dan Antopolski, a man I love and admire. I love his imagination, and I love especially his calm and gentle manner. He says he's off to The BBC Comedy Night so I agree to go with him. He wants to say goodbye to his group. I follow him. The journalist is there. I say "hi" and wave, but she misses it. Presenting me with a dilemma: has she actually seen me? Has anyone else? If they have, hadn't I better wave and say 'Hi' again, so they can see that I'm not just some weird stalker? Am I some weird stalker? 11.45pm. Dan is too tense to walk and chat. He runs off. I bump into Jason Byrne, and we go over together. The BBC Stand Up Show is amazing. 200 people are packed in. It's late night, but there's none of that beery heckling you get at Late N Live. The audience are excited but attentive, wildly enthusiastic. As a result, all the acts are fantastic. Adam Hills, Tony Law, Dan Antopolski, Jimmy Carr, Daniel Kitson. Hillsy comes off-stage, gives me a hug, and tells me he plugged my show at the end of his massive sell out in Pleasance 1. I've always thought that Tony Law looked like the ultimate comedian, he's sexy and befuddled looking, but I've not seen him storm before. Now he does. He's saying: "Sure, you can get mice to play ice hockey but can you get them to play as a cohesive unit?" The crowd roar. Dan does a dense, poetic set. The laughs aren't huge, but I've never seen him look so inspired. He's gone into a strange magical realm, halfway between genius and madness. He's talking fast, and we're all hanging on, waiting to see where he takes us. Jimmy is pacing around, very composed, very quiet. He's a difficult act to love. It's easier to love Phil Kay, or Rob Rouse: joyful improvisers, who never seem to achieve their fullest potential. Jimmy's the opposite: still, neat, he even reads his jokes off a pad. He's also incredibly successful, and no one likes that. But onstage he's fantastic. Every word is precise and clear; every joke is a bullet that cleanly hits the target. Before he starts, someone is whispering. "What?" says Jimmy. "We're trying to work out where you're from". "The Home Counties. Search in vain for an accent. This is the way words sound when they're pronounced correctly". The crowd give him the biggest laughs of the night. I'm amazed by his daring. In comedy, it really helps if you're gay, black, Jewish; I thought there was one minority that everyone hated: posh people. But Jimmy confronts it, and gets away with it. Kitson comes on, looking like a shipwreck victim: tattered clothes, beard. He discovers a Parkie in the front. Daniel is asking him what you can't do in the park. "You can't have a gun and have a discharge". "But you can have a discharge outside the park?" Daniel is miming going outside the park and letting off his gun. The audience are hysterical. I've got that excited feeling you only really get in Edinburgh comedy: I'm at the centre of the world, and there's nowhere else to be. This is what it's all about. 3am. Sleep.
Friday August 12 50 I run off to see Sharon Neill, Ireland's Clairvoyant. I see Brett who helps run Bound and Gagged, and he gives me a ticket. I see Mel, who's on the phone. I wave. She comes over: "I've got to go," she says, "I'm meeting some journalists". I queue up. She comes back: "Get us four seats, you can sit with us". I go in, wondering what I'd have to do to get a message from the medium. Where should I sit, to catch her attention? I could use some advice from the other side. I save four seats near the front. Mel arrives. "We're sitting at the back. You can come over". Sharon Neill comes on, wearing a white suit, accompanied by a man who leads her. She's blind. It doesn't matter where you're sitting. The show's OK. Sharon Neill is clearly a very gifted psychic, but, if you're not getting a message yourself, you're not getting much of a show. You find yourself going a bit Edinburgh: 'This is great. But what about me?' She brings specific information, about a Bobby, known to a woman in the front, who killed himself, on a boating accident on some rocks. Strangely, though, I'm getting restless. I believer that Sharon Neill has got spirits speaking to her; I just want those bastards to put on a show. Dance a bit, sing some songs. I want to see spirits rapping. I want to see my great great granny dancing. The show finishes. I look over, think I'll say hello to the journalists. Mel says: "OK Babe. We've got to go". I go. 9.55. Brendan Burns should have been off 25 minutes ago. I can hear his audience. He's storming again. A guy approaches me, Bruce, who's seen my show before. He says he's found a friend, he's a bit pissed, could I get him a free ticket? 10.20 . I'm onstage. 75 people are in. I'm aware of Bruce's friend. He's been mumbling throughout. It's a dilemma. He's not really heckling, so it wouldn't maybe be necessary to cut him down. Besides, he sounds pissed and aggressive, and he'd probably really turn bad. I do what you should never do onstage: I ignore him, but just let him kill off my confidence. Comedy is a solipsistic battle, a battle of will: you make the audience into the people you think they are. Because of this mumbling, I know they all hate me. I start to improvise, and the voices are going off in my head, loud as a fog horn: "Leave it you're not Ross Noble stop improvising shut up you're horribleno, they just laughed yes, cos you were crude and sexual again if you were funny, you wouldn't need to say that kind of stuff shut up". Fortunately the pissed man leaves, at the end of my challenging philosophical section. Next I do a piece of crowd-pleasing crudeness, which is all about footballers' cocks. It comes from a character I did at the Soho Theatre, last autumn: a shy, thick footballer, who says he plays for Liverpool, but no one's ever heard of him. On further questioning, it emerges he gives out the towels at Anfield. His real area of expertise, is footballers' cocks. It's a strange thing. Audiences really love it. They love to shout out the name of a footballer, and have me imagine what their cock would be like. Sometimes I can't get them to stop. Minutes after I've moved on, they're still shouting. "Martin Keown" "Bobby Charlton". (Bobby Charlton's is bald. But he uses a comb-over. He brushes some chest hair down). Sounds crude, but it works when I can be quite inventive, or even poetic. Anyway, this section sort of wins the crowd back. The voices go quiet. No sign of Mel. Midnight. At BBC Stand-up Show again. Russell Howard is fantastic. Surely he's going to be the new comic who'll leap into everyone's consciousness this year. Then Jason Byrne, who storms. What a wonderful man. I don't want to be in a sit-com. All I want, is once in my life, to improvise a set, at a late night comedy show, and be like Jason Byrne. OK, I'd also like to be able to sell some tickets. And I want someone to review me. I don't think Jason is making a loss. 3am. Sleep. 3 .30 am. Wake again. Feeling like I've bungled my suicide bid. I lie awake for three hours wondering how I'll ever get a review.
Saturday August 23pm. Up Arthur's Seat again, with Raff. A beautiful day. I see the view for miles. See the sea. See the sun gleaming in the clouds. Mel is never going to see my show, no journalist is ever going to see it, but it hits me: it's a joy just to be alive. And I like Emma, the other PR. And someone is coming to the show. I can perform for them every day. 11pm The show's finished. It's been a good one. 60 people in. I had fun, and forgot about everything, but fun. Rachel, my lovely tech, is waving at me excitedly. We'll be OK. 2am. On Wednesday, I'm compering The Spinning Wheel club at the Teviot. It's billed, slightly weirdly, as The Coolest Night At Melbourne, making you wonder, if it's the coolest night in Edinburgh. If I'm compering, it can't be. I go. It looks very cool. They've got Rich Hall's band there. 100 people, all sexy looking. A few big Festival names. Jimmy Carr pacing around in his brown suit. But the show goes wrong. I can't tell why, or how it happens, but, the audience never really start listening. Glenn Wool is compering. He looks like he'd be dead funny normally, but he's putting himself down a lot. Keeps saying: "I'm shit at banter", maybe that's why it's going wrong. Don't know how I'll change it round. Do material? Engage a bit more vigorously? The show looks like it could and should be very cool. But it's not working tonight. 3am. Glenn Wool announces the next act will be Lizzie Roper, doing Lady Agatha. Oh dear. Lizzie's about to do character comedy, at a late night venue. Surely a mistake. Character comedy is more theatrical, it needs attention. It needs a theatre. This audience surely need to be engaged directly. Lizzie comes on. She's bought a new dress, and looks hilarious. Does this amazing impression of an old lady. The acting's that good, the crowd laugh, start to watch. But then the inevitable happens They start to chat. This crowd need spectacle. The only thing that would engage them would be a stripper, killing herself onstage. Lizzie finishes, and disappears behind the curtain. It's not been a success. I totally believe in her, know she's done a good job, but I know what I'd be doing, now, if I were her. I'd be sitting behind that curtain, contemplating suicide. Can I get to her? It would mean walking across the stage. I wait for a distraction, and then go over. She's sitting in the darkness, looking tearful. I give her a kiss, tell her I love her, love her act, and she did brilliantly. I blame everything else. I mean it all too. We grab her stuff, and make a run for it. A band are on. They're standing on tables, singing songs about sodomy. They're doing well. If they strip, or kill themselves, they might be in with a chance.
Sunday August 32pm. I speak to Hils, who did her first After Hours
show at the Pleasance last night. Sounds like it went great.
Good crowds, wild laughter. Tonight she's having Jason Byrne.
How many gigs is Jason doing? Is he cloning himself so he can
be everywhere at once? 10 pm. On-stage. About 70 in. Going fine. 11 pm. Run to Fringe Party. A month ago, Hils booked me in to play here. At the time, I said: "I don't want to do it, if it's a room full of people drinking wine, chatting, and I'll be like a weirdo in the corner, shouting about my father". I arrive. It's a room full of people, drinking, shouting to each other. Andy Zaltzman is the weirdo in the corner, doing a very long routine about Queen Victoria, which 15 people are listening to. Shit. The compere comes over John Ryan a beautiful kind man, who always slips me a little friendly advice. "It's like this, Andrew They're all chatting. I can't get them to stop. But think of yourself as a Big Issue salesman, stand, shout, and do your thing". I aim to do my best eight minutes with a wild manic energy, then get off. I come running on. I get them to cheer as often as I can. "I've just found out my girlfriend is pregnant!" I announce, and they cheer. "Come on, you bastards, I am officially fertile. Cheer!" Into the first quip: "you should have congratulated me when I first had sex, I was dying for praise then, after I gave that woman six seconds of sheer pleasure". It's never a big gag, but it leads to another one which always works. The next gag can make people's heads explode with laughter. They laugh. Someone pipes up: "How do you know it's yours?" A heckler: some dialogue: we're off. I do 15 minutes, and it goes well. Hearty cheers at the end. Someone rushes over and asks for a flyer: "I'll definitely come and see you". I guess a gig like this is like weight training for the comedian. I am drastically over-sensitive, it's a terrible problem for a comedian. It's good practise to play a room where you have to die. It strengthens you up. Let me die often, so that I may develop a shell! Let the audiences see me, and let them sigh: "There he goes, the great comedy tortoise!" Midnight. Walking home. Suddenly alone. I'm wearing a blue cotton suit, which was soaked through with sweat when I left the theatre at 11. I feel shivery and cold. Every germ in Scotland must be making for me. Germs must love the Festival. You can imagine them coming humming up from England, unable to believe the good news: "What? They're all dressed in T-shirts and they're packed into hot damp rooms what? They're all snogging each other? Surely they must be eating well though? No? There's one carrot being shared round the whole country! They do what with it deep fry it?! Let's get over there!" I feel the germs raining down on me. Then I see a sign saying: "Tonight's bil: Jason Byrne, Dara O'Briain, Andy Parsons, Arj Barker". There's nobody there. The place looks empty, and yet, supposedly, in a moment, a first-class line-up is arriving. I drift in, attracted like a moth to a light. Like a tramp to a bowl of soup. I go downstairs. I don't know what I'm doing there. A cheerful girl approaches me: "are you here for the comedy?" "Er I don't know Yes" "That's £10" "Ah, I should go home". Suddenly Jason Byrne appears. Jason Byrne is the brother I wish I had. He's my new festival friend. He says: "You coming in? It's this way". I must follow Jason Byrne at all times. I go in. 2am. I'm watching Jason Byrne again. 20 minutes in, he's not done any material yet. The crowd are roaring with laughter. He's really on form at the moment, he's flying. But what is he doing? Like a comedy scientist, I have to work out how he's doing it. This is my theory. He has a very strong attitude to the audience. Constantly going: "What?! What're you? What?!" He acts like the audience are all in a large conspiracy against him, and he has to figure out what they're up to. This is fun, and it also bonds the audience: we're all playing a giant game against Jason. Then he talks to the audience a lot, getting titbits from four or five people at once. A girl to his right is with a guy: "Are ye's together?" "No" "Do you want to be?" "I wish he was my brother" "What?! 'I wish he was my brother'!?". Jason likes to repeat back what the audience says, and he usually makes them sound like the same character: a strange obsessive, a little stupid; he looks like a strange lonely man who would live at the edge of a village in Ireland. There's a guy to his left: "Where are you from?" "New York" "But you've an English accent! 'No, I'm from New York. I am! I'm from New York!" A year ago, I went to clown school, and learned how to be a clown: you have to be thick, keen; you don't know what you're talking about, but you'll try. Jason assumes the audience are all clowns. And he has four or five conversations on the go, and he keeps returning to them, like a plate spinner, returning to his plates. That's my theory as to why Jason is hilarious. ourse if he read this, he'd say: "What the fuck are you talking about?" I decide to write a sitcom, with Jason playing a weird man, who lives at the edge of the village. He collects things. Pieces of litter, he takes them back to his house and he loves them like family. 3am Bed. 6am. I'm still awake. I have taken four sleeping pills so far. I'm a rhinocerous lumbering through the jungle. Dart after dart have hit me. I'm still going. Will I ever sleep? Monday August 4 3 pm. I'm getting obsessed by the Meadows. It's like
San Francisco in 1968: A place of love and happiness. Each time
I pass it, I see things that are cooler, stranger, more liberal The next time I pass, there's a man playing on a small guitar,
and whistling. It's so beautiful. He's like a figure from a dream
sequence in a film: an angel, who sings on a guitar which has
been patched up with Sellotape. His whistling can change minds
and break hearts. A girl is playing football. Juggling the ball neatly. She does it with trained panache, like a boy who's practised all his life. Then she kicks the ball off, and then she runs like a girl. Nearby to her, a mixed race couple, snogging passionately. Round about them, Scientologists. Beyond them, a huge group of Koreans, in lines, hitting drums rhythmically. 9.55 pm. I should have been in the theatre 25 minutes ago. Brendon Burns is still on. A review of him has appeared outside the front: "How many times do I have to say it? He's original, he's funny, give him a Perrier Award and have done with it". It doesn't say: "This bastard keeps over-running, so Andrew Clover's audience have to leave for their trains". I want to get on. I know it'll be a shit show. No one comes at the beginning of week 1. 10.15 pm. I'm on stage. About 85 people in. Somehow the crowds are building. I've got their wonderful feeling when I, and the whole audience, are in a big warm egg. We're all together. It's a warm, loving place. Everything is orange. I'm saying what they want me to be saying. I'm cheeking them, I'm pushing them, we're all playing together. The world is beautiful. 5.am. Why the fuck can't I sleep?
Tuesday August 5You know that thing, when you think you've seen your friend across the street, and you wave, but it's not them? And you often do this with the same person several times over? And often, for some weird reason, you then do see that person? Making you wonder if somehow you were psychically bringing that person towards you, and your first few attempts weren't quite successful? At the moment, when I do this, I think I see Rob Rouse. What do you call this phenomenon? Let's call it: Seeing Rob Rouse. For you, obviously, it won't be Rob Rouse, but it is for me. Mainly because I've fallen slightly in love with him. It started as a crush, I love his joyful manner, and now it's growing further. I wish to follow him around, and suffocate him with my love. I wish to run him baths and mother him. I only want to feed him milk from my man breasts, is that so wrong? I'll feed him fizzy pop from my human udders, because he's a naughty scamp, and that's what he'd want. I just want to feel the comfort of him inside me. Anyway Stop making me talk about why I want to make love to Rob Rouse. Shut up, you gays, stop making me 2.30 pm. I'm walking back across the Meadows, when I see a guy who looks like Rob Rouse running past. It can't be Rob Rouse, because this guy looks too fit. He has powerful muscles in his legs, which jump and twitch like little puppies. Rob Rouse wouldn't have muscular legs, because he surely spends too much time, playing on play stations, and tying things to cats' tails because he's a naughty scamp. He's got a busy life, Rob Rouse. I don't know, but I imagine it. I imagine him waking up, eating a bowl of Coco Pops, then having a busy morning of Ding Dong Run Away. Then in the afternoon, he'll do some potato prints, for a rich old lady who gives him thousands of pounds 2.35 pm I'm following the guy who looks like Rob Rouse. I approach. It is Rob Rouse. He's standing by a game of football. I look at it, all the players grow more familiar. I realise it's a game of comedians. The star player: Russell Howard. Playing a game, which resembles his comedy: he's been well coached you can see flashes of tricks that you've seen other people do but, ooff, he's got a lightness, and a cheeky flair, and he puts it all together with class. He's a team player as well. Like I say, one to watch. Watch this man grow and grow. three years time, he'll be the new Ross Noble. Who's this in goal, looking a bit worried? Jason Byrne. He looks like he's come along by accident, and he's sweating a little, like he's scared the ball might knock him over. He looks like the Paddy boy, who's not had enough milk. "Hi Jason," I say, "are you OK?" "Well I'm OK But, I'm not very healthy, you see. In my bones." I watch the game for a bit. See Danny Bhoy. Danny Bhoy is a mystery to me. Whenever you come to Edinburgh, you see these massive posters of Danny, all dripping with reviews which say he's funnier than Bily Connolly, wiser than Jesus, and sexier than Robbie Williams. But I never ever see him perform. Ever. OK, I saw him once, at the Soho Theatre, and there were only ten of us, and he didn't do any material, so he waffled around, and he was charming, but you didn't feel you were watching the legend. Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a pop. I find him very handsome and likeable, I like what I've seen of him, but I've never seen the star that I hear about. On the pitch, Danny's dressed in a black track suit, and looks very skinny. He's doing a lot of chasing trying to get the ball off Russell Howard. He's running around, his limbs flailing like a spider being washed down a plughole. Then in the middle of pitch Zaltzman. Fantastic! Like a balding Valderama with white chubby knees. Zaltsman. Like a crazy vicar who takes PE. Commanding. Organising the ball from central midfield like a conductor. He gets the ball, and somehow his force field pushes everyone off him. Russell Howard was eternally playing his way deftly out of a tight corner. Zaltzman commands the space. He advances powerfully. Shoots. Scores. He turns immediately, and walks away. It's a rule of park football: if you score, you don't have to fetch the ball. If you scurf it, you better fetch. Rob Rouse speaks to me. (Oh yes, he's my friend. He doesn't know of the dark love I bear him). "So Clover, are you playing?" "I'm not. I'm not a good footballer. I'm a few yards faster up top." "Oh, you're miles faster up top sunshine. You're playing your own game". Truth is: I'm a horrible footballer. I'm an organiser. I shout. I spend so much time coaching my own team "come on, goal side" the opposition dribble past me. 3pm It's my day off today. I'm planning to go and see a few of the shows that I've promised I'll definitely definitely go and see. Starting with A Very Naughty Boy, the life of Graham Chapman. It's got all the makings of a festival smash hit. I've heard about seven people talking about it, and saying why they enjoyed it. It'll be one of those shows, like 100, last year: a ticket that's so hot, it's tropical. It will be brought to London, where, like other tropical things, it will wither. Last year, I read Copstick's impassioned review of 100, and then queued, and failed to get a ticket. In March, I saw it at the Soho Theatre. A half empty audience, watching politely. 4pm The show is indeed wonderful, funny, and moving. It's so precise: About the relationship between these two writers (Cleese and Chapman) and why they loved and hated each other. Pulls off this amazing trick too: the play is written in the style of a Python sketch, an extremely self-conscious piece of artifice, and yet the truth of it comes shining out. At the end, I suddenly cry. 4.10pm Outside, I congratulate Toni Arthur, one time children's presenter, the director of Naughty Boy. She's there with her husband, Malcolm Hay, comedy editor at Time Out, one of the most important and most loved journalists in comedy, they were both at my show last night. I talk about the play. "Forget the play", says Malcolm, "let's talk about you". He gives a rave review of last night's show. Praises the intelligence, the physicality, said I'd reinvented stand-up. I'm glad he liked the show, but the truth is, I know this Last night's show was a gift, all comedians get them sometimes: shows that are wonderful, partly because of the script and the performance, but also because of the audience, and also because of something indefinable, a bit of magic in the air. Last night's crowd would have thought they'd seen a great show; but last Thursday's wouldn't've done. He says he's going to get a picture of me, and print a rave review next Tuesday. I'm thinking: that'll really help with the audiences, in London. But I'm not in London. I might as well get good reviews in Portugal. 5pm I'm watching Owen O'Neill reading his poems, and telling funny stories between them. 15 people there. But it's a wonderful fringe experience, a guy telling his truth, simply. He tells a story about an old man called Tam he met 20 years ago, when he was a truck driver in the highlands. I cry again. The emotion of the Festival has got to me. I've become a big tearful girl. One of those big-boned ones you see at parties, sobbing by the fridge. You like her, but she looks like an idiot. 6pm Courtyard. Bump into Richard Vranch of the Comedy Store players, here for his 20th festival. He offers me a drink. It's my night off! I ask for a pint of cider, and feel a warm sense of luxury. I feel like I'm eighy, and I'm blowing my pocket money on an ice lolly. Then I realise that Dominic Coleman is on, someone I've promised to see over and again. Dominic fascinates me. When I did Maurice Clark, he was on two hours before. The ultimate Fringe story. He was sleeping in his car, leafleting himself, no money to feed himself, doing a show about why he loved Michael Ball. Two people came each day. One day, no one. One day, one person, a reviewer, who gave a great review. You'd've thought Dominic wouldn't've come back, but he has. Each year. I once asked him why. He said: "at some point, one of my shows is going to take off. So I keep going". He is growing as well. He's moving up the rankings, a few places at a time. Like Tim Henman. Will he ever make the final? Who cares. We want to cheer him on as he throws it all away. Fucking Tim Henman. That's what this country would be like if we didn't have immigration. A nation of Henman fans. Stupid people in floral dresses. People whose greatest happiness is making jam. Anyway Dom's life is obviously back on track. He's that guy in the gross Carling ad, where he licks the flat with his tongue. I run into his show. 25 people, laughing heartily. Brilliantly performed. He's going for that Berkoff / Hull Truck style of performance, where you zip in and out of characters. For a moment, I'm exhilarated. I'm thinking: he's playing everyone, he's got all England into his show. Sadly, he's not got quite enough Dominic Coleman in his show, and so you're not certain what its heart is. I'd like to see him do bigger stories, in less time. 10 minutes, to tell the history of civilisation. It'd be amazing. But where could you put on a show like that? Listen to me, Dominic, I know how to ruin your career! 8.40pm I'm watching Adam Hills, now Edinburgh's third most popular comic, selling out Pleasance 1 every day. Course he's brilliant: he banters with the crowd, he sings a song, he touches on some depth: the Bali bombing. It's weird though. Adam attracts a very mainstream audience, and he doesn't push too hard, cos that would scare them. The first five minutes the audience banter section - get massive laughs, but it's remarkable how little he has to do. He comes on. "Hi you've got a camera wanna take a picture? OK" Girl comes onstage. They take pictures. They do catalogue poses. "How weird is this?" he says. I'm thinking: it's not weird at all; you brought her up; and this is not the first time someone's made fun of catalogue poses. But all this is getting massive laughs. If I'd been in that situation. I'd've seen the camera, I might've got her up, but then I'd've wanted to do something far stranger, or more savage, which would probably have lost them. That's a lie. I'd see her. Instantly six thoughts would jostle in my head waiting to come out two loving ones, two violent, two sexual and they'd've all got stuck like elephants in a lift. I'd've started to speak, and then the voices would go off in my head "shut up you're not Ross Noble" I'd've said nothing. Maybe comedy is easier than I think. You've got to take it calmly, let it out one thought at a time. Why can I see it so clearly now? 9.40pm Dara O'Briain. Excellent. A big man, hurlting out his gags, fast and furious. A big bear of a man. Enormous. You want cuddle him. You want to nestle into his huge body. Make a little holiday home amongst his chest hair. See that's coming out wrong I'm suggesting that just cos he's Irish, I could colonise him for a holiday home. Back to reality Dara makes some excellent jokes. Says: "Have you ever seen your team being stuffed 6-0 by Manchester United? It's not nice, but you have to admire the technique. Like watching another man riding your girlfriend. You're thinking: you're a bastard, but Jaysus, you're getting a lot more out of her than I do". Brilliant. But the bulk of his show takes up just three subjects: finding a new house; being a children's TV presenter; going on a safari. Dara makes fun of the fact that last year he had a lot more substance, he covered death, but this year he's lighter. And he's storming. I'm doing a show whose spine is all about what is good, it climaxes on a reiteration of Kantian ethics (if you want to be good, you have to imagine that, whatever you're doing, 6 billion people are also doing it); I describe what it'd be like to dead; talk about why I hate parents; fathers, mums, sex, existential crisis. Dara admits that he was much more challenging last year, but this year he's not. Maybe I too am trying way too hard. I get carried away when I'm writing, that's what it is. I'm writing stuff, a voice goes off in my head 'yes, but is this funny?' Another voice replies: 'I don't care. I want to change them.' I should just do some jokes about catalogue models. I'd sell a hell of a lot more tickets. And I've got something else from Dara: make jokes about animals, anything about animals is funny. Next year's show, I'll be a zookeeper. If I can write it right, I can darkly suggest, that the zoo is a microcosm of the universe. I'll describe the dreams of parrots, the torments of the flamingo, the vanity of the fish. Little song at the end. Rhyme 'penguin' with 'the whole world is ending'. It'll storm. Fucking next year you bastards. I'll make them laugh so much their heads will come away from their bodies and they'll bounce like balloons on the ceiling. I'll make their eyes bleed. I just want to hurt people, why won't people come and watch that? Wednesday August 6Each festival is a lifetime. When they arrive, everyone is a child. Eager, fresh, friendly. Week 2, they're teenagers. Everyone throws tantrums, and fucks each other. Week 3, middle age hits. People get disappointed, they get sick. Last week, they're old people. They just want to get the weight of their feet and watch telly. I've hit middle age early. I'm feverish. I stay in bed all day, sweating and occasionally sleeping. 7p,, I realise I should cancel, but I hate to do it. I struggle out of bed, and take Raff up the mountain. 10pm 50 people in. A very strange atmosphere. The Sunday Times are in. There's a woman who looks like Mel! Surely not! Early today, I asked Hils to give away some free tickets. Now I see this has backfired. People hate things that are free. They know the show must be shit. They're begrudging. You could make people delighted if you did a 60 minute set about traffic reports in Stockport, provided you'd got them to pay. And some fucker had reviewed it to say it was good. Eight people walk out in the first 10 minutes. I've had one walk out before, now I have eight. People are walking round all the time. The important thing, I reckon, is to keep up the sense of cheerfulness, the play, and I'm doing that. I'm enjoying the strange situation. I'm wracking my brain to find new funny things to say about people walking about: "Look at you, walking about all proudly, like it's first day of school, and you've got a new jumper". Doesn't sound hilarious, does it?, but it works. The show becomes much edgier than normal. Halfway through, I find an American, and tell him I've lost it, and he, as the American, should take charge. I give him a water pistol. He's to shoot me, if I lose it. The final speech becomes a tirade. The music is playing loud, and I'm shouting over it. He's squirting a constant jet at my head, soaking me, and also my microphone. At any moment, I could blow up. I don't care. I'm enjoying it. I'm thinking: I wouldn't mind being blown up onstage. Bring on the death! I wouldn't mind dying onstage, but I want it to happen in a funny way. I want to be pursued round the theatre by a giant python. I want dwarves to crash through the ceiling and cut my head off with a scimitar. What is a scimitar? 11pm Mark Godffrey is there, from the Soho Theatre. He offers a three week run in the autumn. Hils snaps up his offer. He did this before, two years ago, when it looked like Puppy Love was going to be huge. Then it got ignored by the Perrier panel, and the offer disappeared under the door like a ghost. That's the thing. You can abuse it, but Perrier really matters. It's that eternal Catch 22. If someone leaked that I was going to win it this year; the crowds would come; I'd respond to their excitement; give them a great show; reviewers would come; the Perrier people would watch a great show. But someone's not leaking that information. You're eternally trying to jump start a car. Thursday August 79.45am I'm woken early by a couple from Guildford, who are renting a room for a couple of days. A doctor and his fiancee. I look at our flat with misgivings. It's a typical festival flat. Strewn with leaflets. Cups with tannin stains so thick you could grow potatoes in them. And, like all Edinburgh flats: it's got a tiny bathroom with no windows. Why is this? Are Scottish people terrified of having someone look in on them at the toilet? They'd rather have an enclosed tiny space. But maybe this is what the doctor wants. Maybe people would pay extra money to have an authentic festival experience. Maybe I should arrange a couple of Kiwis to arrive at 4 am to play the bongo drums in the living room. Midday My friend arrives to stay: David Walliams, the one who did Rock Profiles. He's now got a new show on BBC2 which is going to be brilliant, Little Britain. Bringing with his a cheerful friend, an actor called James who was, apparently, in the last Mike Leigh film. We go into town. It's hot and beautiful, and I meet Rob Brydon, who I like. I've never met him before, but he does that showbiz thing of pretending that he knows me. It's a good tactic this, if you are famous, pretend you know everyone. That way there's no danger of someone saying 'you fucker. I had you to stay for a week, and now you don't acknowledge me, just cos you're famous'. I ask him about his flat. Turns out he has a huge bathroom, with a window. Can there be such luxury? 11pm I'm leaving the show. An impulse hits. I decide to walk a different way home. Go down a side street. A tall, athletic woman is walking 50 yards in front of me, dressed in faded denim, holding a guitar and a sign. She stops and stands the sign up. It says: "Random Acts of Beauty." A group of three lads are approaching from the other direction. They're a bit Neddy. She says: "I'm here to do whatever you want. What would you like?" One guy says: "I want money". And she starts strumming her guitar, and she sings "you want money / but how much money/ do you want?/ how much money/ do you need?" He says "hundred quid". She completes the song, singing in an angelic voice, and then hands him a hundred quid. This baffles him. That's the thing, she's giving him something for free, you can see he's suspicious. He takes it though. His friend says: "I want to fuck you". She says "I only grant your first wish". They're starting to get a bit nasty. He says she's a slag. I catch up, and I put my arm round her, and I say "Poppy. Here you are. Come on. Everyone else is waiting round the corner". She comes with me. The guys are taken aback, and my tactic works. They don't follow. We walk off. It's weird. I have my arm around a strange lady. I look at her. She's tall, with long red hair, thick black eye liner, and the palest grey eyes you ever saw. I'd guess she's about 26. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. But not beautiful like you want to leap on top of her. You just want to stare into those grey eyes, cos you know she understands everything. She says: "My God, it's you, Clover! How did you know I'm called Poppy?" She has an Irish accent. "I didn't. I just made something up." "Thanks, you were right." "How do you know I'm Clover?" "I just saw your show. I've never laughed so much, but then I loved the part, where you described what it's like when you're looking round your house for something, and it's late, and then you realise you can't remember what it is you're looking for. Looking for nothing, but knowing you won't be OK till you find it It was like the show was all about how we get lost, lost cos no one knows what the hell they're doing, but then at the end, you hit us with the meaning of life, and I felt everything made such sense I wanted to stand and scream." "Thanks! That's what I've always hoped someone would say about it. Thanks! Where are you going?" "Late N Live. I'm singing." "Why did you give that guy money?" "That's what I'm into. The Festival is amazing. People find love, get inspired; but they get selfish and grabby cos they're hoping to change their lives. You have to fight against that, otherwise the festival becomes horrible. It becomes hideous competition. 100,000 people lined up along the shore, trying to get into a boat, which will take three people, and which will sink a mile from shore. "Turn your back on the boat, I say. Turn your back we're grand on the shore let's turn our backs and build sandcastles So yeah I'm not doing a proper show. I just roam about, and I sing where I feel like it. And I like to give stuff away." "But the guy was an arsehole, and you gave him a hundred quid". "I can afford it. And -" "How?" "I doesn't matter well, four years ago, I had an album that sold all over America, and anyway, you wait, who knows what the guy will do with the money. He may give it to his sick aunt" I'm looking at her. Maybe she's one of the Coors. She continues: "Listen, come here, I've got to show you something". We're passing this basement flat. She bends down, and she shows me the walls. They're covered in these really beautiful wooden carvings. Castles and trees. The flat beneath is lit up with candles. Hundreds of them. At that moment, a guy appears at the window and opens it. He looks like a little smiling elf. About 5foot tall, with black hair, and a little beard. Maybe 40. He beams the warmest smile you've ever seen. "I love your carvings," I say. "Ah thanks, I'm very proud of them". He has a Welsh accent. "Do you by any chance have any tobacco?" I get out a pack of Malboro Lights, take out a handle of about 6, and I hand them over. "That's beautiful. Do you want to come down and have a smoke with us?" "Yeah! Great!" So me and Poppy go down. He takes us through to his back room. He's got a kitchen, which is very plain, with just a wooden table, and four chairs. The door is open to back garden, filled with damp plants and a little pond. An elfish woman appears. "Hello, I'm Alf". I didn't realise Alf could be a woman's name, but I've never hung out with beaming Welsh dwarves before. "And I'm Joe", says the guy. He takes my fags, and rolls a long joint using resin, which he burns very neatly, and its sticky smell fills the air, instantly bringing back a nostalgic waft of being 15 and smoking round camp fires, with girls who let you kiss their white necks in the darkness. We're there for about an hour. Poppy insists on telling them all about my show, and suddenly I realise how I like all the things I say onstage, and it feels good that I've created images that someone else can take away. He asks me how it's going, and I give him a more downbeat picture. He says the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. He has quite a deep voice, for such a little man, and he's got a poetic lilt to it. He says: "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, and whether it is clear to you or not, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, amidst the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. For all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful, strive to be happy". I feel suddenly that everything makes sense. But I'm stoned now, so it makes a poetic sense. A poetic sense is where you understand completely, but you couldn't explain. Poppy says we should go, and both elves give us big hugs, and thank us for coming. We're walking away, and I thank Poppy for being so kind about my show. I say: "You're really lovely. I'd love to do something for you". "You are already have. You rescued me from the Neds, and you gave me a beautiful show". "You paid for the show. And I was doing it anyway." "Giving is good, but for you it's like a compulsion. Why do you have to give something to me?" "OK" "Actually, there is something you could do. But I won't ask it now. Why do you keep putting yourself down?" And for some reason, I tell her everything. I'm telling her how the only contact I had with my verbose dad was when he sent me 15 pages letters criticising my personality, accusing me of self-indulgence. Why performing comedy puts me on a collision course, cos I'm onstage feeling I'm self-indulgent, and I'm talking too much. About my mother, who's desperate to please. How I left home when I was nine, to a school where I got beaten and used to wet my pants before lessons with the headmaster. How I won a scholarship to Winchester College, which meant I had free education in a school where the other boys called me Kevin, and how, if I walked round the town, I'd dress like a tramp cos I never ever ever wanted to be associated with the posh fuckers from the school I trail off, I'm realising it: this is my problem, but no one is going to sympathise too much. No one's going to say "you poor posh boy. You've had it so hard". But she hears me out, and then says: "Self-deprecation is like arrogance, it's just the other side of the same coin. You're proving to the world you're not arrogant so they don't hate you. But your work is very personal, that's why I like it. You can't be personal, and not be self-indulgent. Forgive yourself. You're grand." "That's great. Thanks. I'd really like to do something for you". "You keep fucking saying that. You can later. But come to Late n Live. And tell me. What are you scared of?" "Late n Live, for a start. I feel that's a beast I must conquer, but on the other hand I'm scared to improvise. It feels like I've jumped out of the boat, and I'm swimming off into the Pacific Ocean." "Maybe you'll like the water". She puts her arm round mine, and we walk on. Then, here's the weird thing. Suddenly someone comes running up to us from behind. It's the Ned. He says: "Here. Here's your money." "It's yours," she says, "give it to someone" I don't need it," he says, "have it back". And she kisses him, and we walk off to the Teviot. 3am. She comes onstage at Late N Live. She's singing. I'm watching from the wings. Then she says: "I want to introduce a friend. Mr Andrew Clover" The crowd applaud. I freeze. I find myself walking on. I stand in the lights. I can't see out. Ahead of me is a haze of smoke and lights. Beneath me, 300 faces in the darkness. "Shit!" I say "It's all hazy. It's like I'm at the bottom of the sea. And you at the bottom are all like little cod, sitting on the ocean floor. You know how there's only three cod left now. Sitting on the bottom of the sea. I'd like to talk to them, I imagine their little faces full of betrayal "what? They're covering us in batter, and selling us outside pubs, to people who're pissed. They can't even taste us". I don't know why I've said this. It relates to an idea I once had that I've never used onstage. But I do a good impression of the cod, and the audience laugh. Poppy said: "So Andrew is now going to sing his songs about the cod". I look at her. I can't believe it. So she strums, and I start to imagine. I imagine the whole of Late n Live, we're a whole bunch of cod, and we go sailing up the Thames, trying to get our revenge on the people. We're sweeping people of the embankment. Occasionally we find a baby person, chuck them back. Gesture of kindness. The audience are following it all, laughing. I'm getting the floor to make fish noises. We sing more. Poppy does the chorus "why do they waste us, when they can't even taste us?" And everyone does percussion in fish noises. I describe us going up the rivers of London, looking for the amateur anglers, the ones that say "the fish don't mind. I chuck em back. It's only sport". I imagine that the amateur anglers are the ones on the balcony. So I say we're going to grab them into the water, thrust hooks in their mouths, let them splash about. The audience are enjoying it. We sing about other fishy things: submerged supermarket trolleys, the big pike, eels I get to the end, and say: "Fishing. It's what blokes do cos they want to relax by the river. Trouble is, they think it's a bit gay, so they add violence". The whole song has emerged so naturally, it's gone brilliantly. The crowd cheer. I look at my watch. I've been onstage 15 minutes. How did that happen? I stay and do a little material, but all the most person stuff, about how I want love, but not from my mum, about she pats my arse. Then me and Poppy do another song about when Mums pat their children's arses. We finish. The crowd cheer. We've been on 25 minutes. We leave. Poppy lives nearby, so she suggests I come back to hers for another smoke. I'm sitting in her bedroom, which is Edinburgh at its best. Huge room, bear boards, a mattress on the floor, some books against the wall supported by bricks I ask her what she wants me to do for her. She says: "I want you to make love to me". I explain to her that's the one thing I can't do. I tell her about Liv and my kids. Naturally I've never been so aroused in my life. I'm drunk with eroticism. Light-headed. I'm focusing on the amber necklace that sits on her white chest. "But, we'd only do it once. And your girlfriend would never know". "But I would. Our love is like a house. If you stay there, you can build it up, make it strong. I can't spread my love around. I can't move out and live in a tent. It would weaken the whole house." "Fair enough". So I stare at her, full of love, and we don't have sex. We sit down, and she tells me her whole story. How she used to be a successful singer, and how she loved this guy called Mark, and she would get frustrated cos he never asked for help, and then one day they argued, and she threw him out, and that night he died in a car crash, and now she feels guilty. And she's never had sex since, but she says if I would be the man to do it with her, then she thinks she can move on. By the end of it, we're both lying on the mattress, and she's crying. So we're lying together, it's 5 am, and we're drifting into sleep. I don't know if you've ever found yourself in bed with someone, with whom you've never had sex. It's the single most exciting place to be on this earth. Cos every action is so charged. We take off our jeans, and lie there under the duvet. Her arm touches mine. That's OK, that's not sex, that's an accident. I hold her hand. We grip our fingers together. That's not sex, that's friendship. And then she moves over, and she lies her head on my chest. That's still not sex, it's comfort. Though I'm erect as a flag pole. Then we lie on the pillow facing each other, and I stare into her grey eyes. Over the course of five minutes, we get closer and closer together, until I can feel her breath coming through her parted lips, and touching mine. And then our lips touch. And then slowly she opens her mouth, and her tongue reaches out, and we kiss, and we kiss a long time, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever felt in my life. And we're kissing more, and I kiss her neck, and her ears, and we kiss more. And then she pulls off her white Tshirt, and underneath she has on a black bra, and she reaches her hands round the back, and her breasts come spilling out. They're a good size, very white, with small red nipples, and I take them in my mouth, and it's all wet. My mouth is dry, and I drink from the glass of water by the bed, and splash water on her breasts from her mouth, and bite. And I'm kissing her stomach, and her thighs. And then she does that thing the finest sight of any man's life she lifts up her hips, and I pull down her black pants. Her pubic hair is trim, auburn coloured, and gradually I make my way, and I'm licking her, and she's delicious, like wine and jasmine. I stay there for ages, exploring around, and then suddenly she clamps her thighs around my head, and I can hear nothing, but can feel the surge of her orgasm. And then she pulls me up, and she fumbles for a condom that she's got in a wash bag in her rucksack over near the bed. She kisses my cock, and puts the condom on for me. Then she lies down on her front, and lifts her arse towards me. Very slowly, I enter her from behind, till I can fell her buttocks pressing against my hips, and she groans as I go in, and I reach underneath, and I feel her clitoris. I enter very slowly, maybe a whole minute passes, and then we begin. And after a while, she turns over, and she faces me, and this time she pulls her knees right back, and we fuck facing each other. It gets more and more frantic, and the sweat is running from my body to her, and she's gripping my back and my buttocks, and she reaches round and she inserts a finger in my arse, and I do the same, so we're gripping each other and thrusting and biting and panting, and outside I can hear some festival goers going past, and then I hear someone playing a guitar, and then I hear some mad kid letting off a single firework, and for a second I remember the whole festival outside, and I feel that I'm at the centre of it right here, right now, and Poppy grips my hair in her fist, and she looks me in the eye and she says "I fucking love you" and I say "wherever you are, I'll always love you", and at that moment I thrust into her as deep as I can, and I can feel the muscles of her arse convulsing round my finger as she comes, and an orgasm sweeps up my body like a tidal wave, and I come. None of that story is true. I just thought that if you'd read my diary this far, you should be rewarded with a bit of sex. At what point did you work out it was all a horrible lie? When I was fucking one of the Corrs? How about the Welsh elves? And are you turning against me now? Are you thinking, so if you made that woman up, why did you get her to say such great things about you? I can't explain that. It's my diary. She's my fantasy woman. That's what I needed her to say. None of that happened. The truth is more drab, and more prosaic. I went to see Jimmy Carr. He was masterful, world class, but I didn't really laugh, until he got people onstage because that moment made it all more human and more spontaneous. Then I did my show. I came running on, ready to give it the full Steve Martin, and was flummoxed to see 25 people out there. Including my friend David Walliams sitting in the front. You'd think: that's great, your friend was in. But have you ever met David Walliams? He has a kind heart. I go round to his house, and he cooks me fine meals with a starter, and he steams broccoli. He asked to be the godfather of Cassidy. He's a sweet man. But he looks like a fucking assassin. I've had him sitting through all my shows, I've sat beside him watching wonderful comedy, and I've never seen him crack a smile. He's like a hardcore comedy addict. He's had too much of it in the past. Only a massive dose can get him to spit out a laugh. You'd need Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, George Carlin, and some of the finest moments of You've Been Framed. And not the shit stuff either. No people falling off bikes. I'm talking fat ladies falling into swimming pools, I'm talking toddlers falling asleep with their face in the custard. The best. I performed a peeled abortion of a show. I left, and I heard a rumour that that one of the 25 could have been Kate Copstick, this year a Perrier judge. I realise she could have been hiding in the shadows on the balcony. Bollocks. We go and see After Hours. Watch the audience going mental for Jimmy Carr, but I don't go mental cos I've heard the gags already. Again, I admire his honed precision. I admire the superb craftmanship of his gag-writing. He's a BMW of comedy. He's brilliant. He's wonderful. He's the future of comedy. Audiences are bored with drunk improvisations; they want Jimmy: a man who did all his work months ago, when he wrote hundreds of jokes, improved them, honed them, and then cut out all but the best 10 per cent. He's fucking great, let me build a shrine and cut off my nipples and place them upon it. He's a deity, I see that. But I don't laugh. And I feel confused by watching him. When I watch Ross Noble, the biggest thing in comedy, I think "Jesus, he's good but how the hell do you do that?" When I watch Jimmy, set to be the biggest thing in comedy, I think: "Jesus, he's good. But I wouldn't ever want to be like that". I watch him, and I want to learn, and I get baffled. I thought the comedian was an innocent; Jimmy's knowing. He says: "Last year I wanted to get on TV. So big tick to me". I would expect the audience to boo that; they cheer. I thought the comedian wore ill-fitting clothes; he wears Richard James suits. I thought a comedy show took a voyage into a world of haphazardness and unexpectedness; it's more important to look spontaneous, than to be funny. Jimmy's gigs are immaculately controlled. Maybe I've got it all wrong. In my heart of hearts, I secretly thought my show would be the hit of the summer. People would say: "It's like Kitson last year intensely personal, but it offers you a whole world view". But they don't. Is there a parallel world, where I'm the biggest thing in comedy, and Jimmy pays 12 quid to come and watch me? Sits there in the dark thinking I'm too smart, I should be looser, I should be more like Andrew? Am I in the wrong world? What would Jimmy himself say? "Andrew, we're different. You are you, and I'm me. Vive la difference". I walk home with my friends through the Meadows. James tells me I'm so brave to be doing comedy. I fucking hate it when people say I'm brave. They might as well come right out and say it: you must have balls of steel, cos you kept going although you were looking like a twat out there. It's almost as bad as when your mum's friends see your show. They always say: "Well that was different yes Roger, it was very different". I am different. I am brave. Kill me now. Rip out my intestines and wear them like a scarf. 3am I turn on my mobile phone, and hear seven messages. This is why I turn my show off two hours before a performance, and don't turn it on till way later. I hate mobile phones. I hate it when people call me up saying "call me. It's urgent". I always think: "I won't. You sound tense". The phone messages add up to a veritable Fedre farce of an off-stage drama. The messages are mainly from Mel She rung to ask me to go on GM:TV tomorrow at 6.15 am in the Pleasance Courtyard rung to say Hal Cruttenden would step in instead Hils had guaranteed it Hal Cruttenden had pulled out she was looking a fool she didn't want to speak to Hils again Don't get me wrong, I'm profoundly for every second Mel spends trying to get someone to put me on telly, drum up a bit of trade, but I'm also baffled again. I've cancelled my show tomorrow, cos my brother is getting married, in Oxford, tomorrow at lunchtime. Surely someone, might have said: "I don't reckon he'll be doing GM:TV; the chances are he'd rather go to his brother's wedding." Tell me I'm a fool Would everyone else cancel their brother's wedding to do a two minute spot on breakfast television? I'd make my brother get married, just so I could avoid it. For that matter, I'd get married myself, rather than have to get up very very early to be in the Pleasance Courtyard. Friday August 88:22am. The lobby of Edinburgh airport. Smoking a fag in the bar. On the telly, GM:TV. The segment I was supposed to be on in company with several people - was going to be shown at 8.15. It's already finished. It's difficult to see what they're onto now. A section about a new innovation in garlic pressers. Something big. Shit, I could have been on. I could have made it. I could have been a contender. 12noon. I arrive in Oxford. My girlfriend's dad lives there, and that's where she is. I arrive and she comes to the door, and we kiss. I'm a bit bashful, cos I know I stink of fags and festival, whereas she's all fresh. We go through to the garden, and I see Grace through the window. She's being held by my mum. I'm planning on sneaking up on her, but she seems to sense me. The second, I come into sight through the window, she sees me. Looks at me. A dangerous half second. And then a massive smile. I come outside, and take her. It's weird seeing my daughter again after a fortnight. I've never in my life felt such an ocean of love for someone, and yet she's 19 months old, we've never had a conversation. We communicate with games and gestures. With her mum, she cries; she knows mum gives comfort. With me, she laughs; she knows that's what I want. When you raise a child, you fashion the perfect person to please you: I've created a blonde laughing goblin. She's never understood a single joke I've told, but already she finds me hilarious. Kids are purists; they don't care about the material; the delivery is all. You gotta make strange noises, with good timing. You gotta laugh yourself. We both laugh inanely. I put her down, and she fetches me her bear, Georges Boujnim, the Famous Belgian Bear. I take Boujnim. I make him talk. This is good material. She's been waiting a fortnight for someone to get that lazy bear bastard to talk. For a fortnight, he's been all stuffing and no trousers. We fling bear away. Grace gets on hands and knees, and growls. This is the invitation to make a tiger and give chase. I want a girl who laughs; she wants a man who growls. I get down, I growl, I give chase. We romp through our repertoire of games. For a finale, we go for the big one. We unfurl the hose, and she chases me round the garden like a crazy fireman. 1:30pm. Sitting in a restaurant with my brother. He's getting married in an hour. He's shitting himself. I hold his hand and kiss him. What's he got to get worried about? He's got to say vows, but the crowd aren't going to turn against him. He's not getting reviewed. (Imagine that you come out of the church, and the guy from the Liquid News approaches you: "So, you just got married but already people are saying that your delivery of the vows was formulaic do you think that love is obsolete?") 2:50pm. Church. Organ music. Girlfriend next to me holding my hand. Beautiful girls in hats all incredibly happy. I'm a part time Christian. I pray, at funerals, or when I'm choking. Occasionally just before a first night. I decide to pray now. I close my eyes, try to contact God, wishing love to my lovely brother and his beautiful bride. I wish them infinite happiness. I sense dozens of guardian spirits fluttering round. I feel a Niagara Falls of Golden Light pouring into the room. 3:30 pm. The vicar is doing the performance of his life. He reads out the famous prayer of St Francis of Assissi. It has never sounded so good, and so true: "Where there is despair, let there be hope. Where there is darkness, let there be light Seek not to be forgiven, seek to forgive." Suddenly it all seems to be directly important to a comedian. I love the bit where St Francis says: "Seek not to win prizes. You are an entertainer. Seek to give, for thus you shall receive Don't improvise too much, but believe in your structure. Always smile, but do not be like Bob Monkhouse And never, ever, succumb to the temptation to become bitter." 7:45pm. I'm master of ceremonies. I come to the front, and cheer. The crowd go wild. This gig is easy. I do the best man speech. 100 faces look at me all expectant. I stick to the usual formula. I find a few catch phrases for them to shout out, a few Finnish toasts (the bride is Finnish). I tell a few anecdotes about my brother's childhood, brilliantly illuminating the subtleties of his character. I say some stuff that is very close to the bone. I redeem it all by saying some blindingly nice stuff at the end. I begin to cry myself. The audience weep. I reach the traditional sign off: "raise high the rooftops carpenters, I give you the groom, taller than a tall man!" I love best man speeches, in fact I even do a service where I write them for people (I interview you for two hours, get your material, then write down your speech, then we hone it together, then rehearse it together. It's a great service. 250 quid a go. Track me down if you want to do it. TheCastle5@aol.com). The real joy of performing a best man speech, is to perform knowing that there's an air of love in the room, and you can soar above it like an Osprey. 10pm. I dance with my girlfriend. I dance with my mum. I chat with my gran. Weddings are like Edinburgh. They attract a cross section of society. Everyone starts beautiful. It's all about love. By the end, everyone pukes in the bushes. Saturday August 92pm Waiting for the bus in Oxford High Street. The hottest day of the decade. German tourists huddling under umbrellas. I've left my dog with a lovely girl in Edinburgh called Daisy who I've only met twice. Nearby is a jewellery stall. I decide to get Daisy something. They only sell belly rings. I want to buy a gift for a girl I don't know, and I'm wondering: Does she have a pierced belly? 6pm Buy her champagne at the airport. 7pm See Daisy and Raff standing outside the Pleasance. Raff is wildly excited to see me. I'm more excited to see her. I pick her up and we communicate with a chorus of loving growls. Daisy's very grateful for the champagne, but she does have her belly pierced, and would have appreciated a new ring. See: you should always stick to your first instinct. 9pm Heading for the theatre through the Meadows. Jugglers. Girls waving ribbons. Drummers. I'm bulging full of love. I am going to do a gig to make St Francis proud. I shall give, and in giving I shall receive. 10pm Come onstage. 130 people in. Almost sold out. The energy is vast. I come on like an Old Testament prophet. I'm pumped with energy. The mic isn't working. I hurl the stand off-stage. I shout: "Who's the Daddy?" The crowd reply: "You're the Daddy"; again: "Who's the Daddy?" "You're the Daddy!"; "And now just you in a camp voice: Who's the Daddy?" "You're the Daddy!" I'm so excited I forget I have a script. I think up loads of quick improvisations to connect with the audience. Several minutes in, I remember the script, we plunge into the show. A good'un.
Sunday August 1010pm 30 people. What the fuck is happening to my audiences?
They're a coquettish bunch. They arrive in droves, and then they
all disappear. I notice Steve from Chortle sitting at the back.
Bollocks. Click over to read his review. It can't be very good,
cos the show was limp. I shan't read it. Press makes me self-conscious,
and I only hear the bad words. They stick in the mind like shards
of glass. This is what the Festival is all about. Ross is brilliant. He's always brilliant. He works a few of his favourite themes in: we could all tunnel out of here, into another gig. Ross is a strange phenomenon. In the industry, people seem to talk about him less and less; he gets bad press; the public love him more and more. I love him more and more. It's incredible. He sells out every show. 630 people a night are turning up to see a young man talk. People always talk about the improvisation, which, certainly, is astonishing. I admire him, not because he makes up his set, but because his ideas are so beautiful. He sees extraordinary images in his mind. Comedy is a kind of speed poetry. Ross describes a strange picture: "You're sitting on your own, with a whole row to yourself. Are you a big snake man. Do you have a tail along the seats?" We laugh cos we see it. I love watching him. I love his strange hooded eyes, which look like a woman in an 18th century painting. 12:15am Brooks bar at the Dome. A cross between a gentleman's club, and the lobby of a YMCA. Speak to Kevin Bishop, a beautiful man, who directs the Royal Variety Performance. He says he adored the show yesterday. (Of course, it was a full crowd: it was an excellent show). I ask him if I can try out for the Royal Variety. He says they're doing it in Scotland; the act who'd storm would be Danny Bhoy. Discover Johnny Vegas is doing Late n Live tonight. Brilliant. On his day, Johnny Vegas excites me more than any comedian. I love the passion, the soaring eloquence, his bleeding battered heart. Run off and spend 15 quid getting a ticket. 15 quid! 1:30am Kiston's compering. He's wildly excited about seeing Johnny onstage. Someone heckles: "Vegas is shite". Kitson says: "You're naïve, but foolhardy." I love Daniel for this. I love the way he insists on appealing to the noblest side of the audience. He's asking people what they do, and making jokes about their jobs. Someone heckles: "You should play the drums". Kitson says: "You're quite correct". He continues his banter, but doing a drum roll on each gag. Kitson is the prince of Edinburgh. I watch him, and it suddenly hits me. I love him. Kitson is the boy we all bullied at school. Now he's having the best year of his life, and we long for him to succeed. I watch him with pride and affection in my heart. I'm a mother watching her seven-year old doing ballet. I adore him. Ironically I don't think Danny adores me. Occasionally I say hello to him. He always looks at me askance, like I'm about to sell him insurance. 3:30am Watching Vegas doing what he does best. Dying onstage, then rescuing it all with a sing song. 5:30am Sleep Monday August 112:30pm Wake. Listen to my messages. Ross Noble has called to invite me on a dog picnic. Excellent. You have to bring sandwiches and a dog. Sadly I've missed it. Discover my first review has come out, The Independent on Sunday. He obviously enjoyed the show "stand-up to watch out for madcap Rick Mayallish energyit's when he blurts out his loathing of himself, his family, and other people's children that he really earns his money. Emotional nakedness suits him better than physical nakedness". A decent review, but it's one of those ones that's included in a roundup of ten shows. Not going to sell any tickets. Anyway, what money does Nicholas Barber think I'm earning? 10pm Again, a small crowd. But this time I'm ready for it. I get the audience to all move up together. I ask them to imagine our theatre is a little clearing in the woods. You know the sort of place that you come across? You walk through the trees and then you find a park bench, surrounded by fag butts. A wet porn mag in the bushes. I ask them to imagine we're all children The girl in the front, you've got a crushed snail in a yoghurt pot You've found a condom in the bushes, and, for the entertainment of the other children, you're going to put it on. It's a really nice show, and I feel proud of it. 11pm The Liquid News have been in, filming the show, so they can take out a 10 second segment. They interview me afterwards. Want to know how I think Edinburgh has changed Do I resent all the big acts appearing? Do they take all the audiences from people who deserve it? Does it destroy Edinburgh's spirit? Do I hate the Perrier? I'm thinking: I don't like your tone, young man; you seem to be casting me in the role of spokesman for acts that aren't getting any audiences. I'm not sure what to say I don't hate the Perrier. I used to think that I love Edinburgh because it's a place where outsiders can get a chance. Four years ago, I did Maurice Clark, a one man show, at 5 pm, in a tiny theatre. And it got picked up, and it soared. Me and Lizzie Roper fliered our arses off every day, but the show eventually got attention for two reasons: because Kate Copstick found the show, and loved it. Secondly it got picked up by the Perrier panel. I love those guys for that. They scour hundreds of shows, in the hope that they might find someone new. By nominating me, they gave me a chance. But of course it's a shame that comedy should become a competition. It's a shame that the competition is sponsored by a massive Swiss company, who have made money by dissuading African women from using breast milk. It's a shame that the panel are mainly critics, since they have a taste for a certain kind of show. I thought Birthday Party could have been nominated. I was suggesting to the audience that they wanted to be children again; asking them why that might be; and instead of just talking about it, I was making them children; I made it fun, and then I made it worse and worse and worse. I thought that there was an intelligence behind it all. It made the audience roar with laughter. And it was a feat of performing: it's not easy to have 150 strangers come in, and 50 minutes later, to have eight of them on stage, pretending to do a jousting match, while the rest of the audience hurl sweets at them. I was proud of Birthday Party. But it is the definition of a show that a critic would hate. Critics are usually literate, intelligent people, often shy. Their idea of horror is the possibility that they might be dragged onstage and hit with cream. It's tempting for a critic to think: he hits people; he can't have any real wit; he can't be a real writer. If he uses the audience that much; it's possibly that he doesn't have a script. (If you only knew the hours it takes to imagine every situation, so you can do a live event where it all flows smoothly). It's more tempting still, for a critic to do something else: keep right away. That's what most of them did. And maybe they're right. And maybe critics are the best judges. Who else could you get? A panel of fellow comics? None of them would turn up. But I don't hate Perrier. I would cut off my foot to get nominated. This isn't vanity. It's necessity. In comedy, thousands participate, but only a handful make a living from it. The Edinburgh audiences have a choice of hundreds of comics to see. I need to give them a reason to come and see me next year, cos I can't lose money again. I don't say any of this to Liquid News. I say: "You can never be upset that you've got a small audiences. If someone turns up, how dare you not give everything to try and entertain them?" 2:30am I'm compering the Set For Fame night at the Underbelly. Set for Fame means: not famous yet. (No big names). A good crowd to compere: lots to work with. Some beautiful kids sitting next to me at the front, looking like I'm the vicar and they're choirboys. Clearly some humour there. "There's a lot of talk, isn't there?, about how priests are all paedophiles. Certainly, for the choirboy, that is one of the attractions. Remember the pride we felt, holding the adult part for the first time". Bit sick, but it's late night. Some very pissed women. A woman staggers towards her seat: "You're so good-looking," she says, "I'm sorry". "Why are you sorry?" I pretend to be her: "Because you're good-looking I must have you. I'm sorry, because afterwards I must murder you. I shall love you, and then kill you. I shall cut off your hair and stuff it inside little teddy bears that I like to make". The audience laugh a lot. Interesting how much they laugh, if you talk about murder. I suppose comedy is about answering their fears. There's someone at the back, so pissed he's asleep, sitting in his chair. Realise it's Aaron Barschak, the Comedy Terrorist. We take an interval. Noel James is coming on next. He asks me not to build him up too much. I realise this is something to learn. It's late night, so I've been trying to invigorate the audience, by giving it lots of energy. But he's quite right. I shouldn't build up the acts too much. The audience will expect car crashes, spectacle, fireworks. Not a bloke telling puns. The Comedy Terrorist wakes up. I speak to him. Ask him how his show's going. He gives me the dead eyed look of the drunk. Tells me how he got nervous, and put off writing his show for a month. I tell him I wish I'd been able to work with him. Fringe shows, at their best, are a person telling their story: his story is incredible. If we could tell it, it'd be so great: Why did he take up Comedy Terrorism? What did he want to achieve from gatecrashing the Royals? Did he get what he wanted? Did he get something else? What funny things happened on the day? It should be an incredible show. My head is whirring. I'm thinking: you could write an amazing movie about this. But Aaron Barschak's head isn't whirring. I'm thinking: you fool. Life has dealt you an incredible opportunity, and you're throwing it away. Tuesday August 111pm Mel calls to invite me to the Loaded Party. I go over there. I meet the woman who said "Sorry, you're very good-looking". Turns out she's a TV producer. Making a documentary about the Comedy Terrorist. The CT as they seem to call him. Do I have an opinion about him? I say: people don't seem to rate him as a comedian; but he's obviously a world class at exhibitionism, and that's a higher art form. I don't believe it though. The CT himself is dressed in a cool suit, and he's lording it about, looking foppish, a little puffed up, and a little desperate. At the zenith of his success, he's already getting ready to get washed away. Soon he'll be old news. Litter in a gutter, heading towards a drain. I feel sad for him. Somewhere inside him there's a child who meant well, and wanted to be loved. 2pm Dara O'Brien turns up. He says he doesn't understand why the Loaded party is here, now. It would've been more in keeping with the spirit of the magazine, if they'd had the party, last night, at the end of the BBC one, at 6am. They should have thrown a few strippers in. We both drink an orange juice. 6pm I'm enjoying one of my favourite sights of the Festival. I'm up the mountain, looking over the valley towards Arthur's Seat. The height is exhilarating. You want to soar across it. The phone rings. It's Toni Arthur. The Time Out review is about to come out. Sadly an accident has happened. The article will be printed, but it won't have my pic next to it. There's a picture of someone else, no one knows who. I hope the anonymous man reads Time Out; sees himself announced as a new genius in the world of comedy. Maybe that's what he wants? Maybe he wants to establish himself as serious? Tony promises to e-mail the review over to us. 7:30pm Dave is leafleting the courtyard with my review. It says: "Sheer undiluted talent in the Pleasance Courtyard. Andrew Clover, a wild man of comedy who's blessed with a truly stunning range of skills, comes of age in a show that's perfectly controlled and closer to pure stand-up than anything he's done before. Clover's use of language continually startles and delights. And his loose-limbed physicality matches the fluency of the ideas. Jokes, social comment, mini-tirades, flights of fantasy, expert buttonholing of the audience they're all part of a highly impressive package". 10pm The review seems to have had some effect. The crowd has tripled from last night. 80 in, and a strong feeling of anticipation. The show goes up three gears, and becomes really good. At the end, six beautiful youths run over and kiss me and say they love it. They're drama students, so that's their job, but it's still nice. See, reviews matter. In previous years, I've always had five stars in the Scotsman. The day before the review, you're getting 30 people. Then suddenly, 150. All architects. The posh people of Edinburgh. Not big laughers, but fuck it, it's a crowd. 11pm Dominic Coleman came to the show again. He saw
the second one, and told me afterwards he wished I was doing
character comedy again. His favourite show ever was Maurice Clark,
A Man of Substance: "It really soared. When I saw it,
I thought I should pack up and go home." But now he thinks
this show is as good. Can I get back the other people who saw
me before I was raising a crowd? Today I walked through the Meadows, and a tiny man was following me, looking at my dog, making weird noises "pcccch pa pa! Bbbbb och" He looks at me, he says "I'm making the sound of your dog". I look at Raff, he's got it right. He says: "Come closer". He waves me over. I approach. He says: "Who? Why? What are you?" I say: "I'm a comedian". "What?" he says "what kind of comedian?" "I'm half fool, half wise man. I talk about dogs and poo. Then I talk philosophy and love. Who are you?" "I'm the Chinaman," he says, "I'm everything at once Listen. What's this I'm sorry! Tell me, what is that? I'm sorry". He's putting on this strange cartoon voice. I say to him: "It's cartoon man. He's an old man. And he sounds strange, cos he's being crushed by a steam roller. As he flattens, he's saying: I'm sorry". The Chinaman looks at me. He says: "You've got it! You've absolutely got it! Thank you!" Today I saw Phil Kay. I love Phil Kay. Seven years ago, I was a TV star, I was in Cardiac Arrest, and I stayed with Phil. He was the child of joy. Wherever you went, fun happened. On the launch of the national lottery, we went into a shop to get our first tickets. Phil was interviewing people in the shop to get numbers: "How many dogs do you have? What is the number of opacity?" He found old ladies back from choir practice, and he made them sing. 3am As I enter the Meadows to walk my dog, I see a
man so drunk he's swaying. When Wednesday August 122pm I have lunch with Copstick. For the record: I haven't slept with her. I'd be scared to. But I do admire her immensely. I think the Festival is strengthened by her presence, her wisdom, her wonderful prose. She comes across like Cruella De Vil, but her secret is this she'd hate for me to say it - she has a huge heart. She has an idea of what makes great performance, and she's a great critic, cos she's helping to shape the work that's out there. She keeps returning to Edinburgh cos she genuinely loves it. Throughout the last week, she's been helping her aunt to die. "I just talked to her for hours. Gave her my best material" Copstick was indeed in my terrible show. Didn't like it so much as previous years. I want to plead with her. Want to say: please come back. I know you'll see it differently. Please send another Perrier judge in. But I can't. I hate to see a friendship degenerating into an exchange of mutual self-interest. Besides, I can't have it both ways. I can't say she's got
brilliant judgement, then try to over rule it when it doesn't
suit me. This is the challenge of comedy. Someone heckles, you
have to keep up your spirit. Copstick doesn't like the show,
it's sad. But I still believe in it. Know that, with a good crowd,
it's my best one. Jason explains that his boy has just arrived. "He can't believe his luck. A whole town full of comedians. Big men who play". I sit on the ball, and tell Devon he'll never push me off. Devon charges me. Knocks me off. The ball blows off again. "I think it's the wind that keeps pushing it. Who makes the wind?" Devon looks at me. He knows the answer to that one: "Daddy makes the wind", he says. And he's probably right. 10pm Numbers are a bit down again. It's all very well giving out a good review, but it's not the same as having thousands of people read it, willingly, over their breakfast. 3am I meant to go home early, but once again I find myself at the Spinning Wheel at the Teviot. I love it. I love the two beautiful women who run it. Tonight we're all waiting for Adam Hills, who's going to come on and sing. He does. He improvises a final song about the two guys in the front. Performs in the style of rap, opera, and country-and-western. I hug him as he comes off. He's done four gigs today, and he's given his all again. What I love about the Festival, is that it's life condensed. You want people to love you, so you have to ask yourself: why should they? You end up trying to be the absolute best person you can be; you give; you applaud, cos one day you might be applauded. It's easy to learn from Adam. He's funny, he's sharp, but, above all, he's always generous. That's the real lesson of the Festival. Give. Keep going. Never succumb to the temptation to become bitter. Bitterness is a retirement home for comedians; once they go there, they'll never work again. Relax. Remember it Everything is right: one day you will get your chance. Thursday August 13But today the anger comes. At some point in the festival, it will happen. I'm woken up early cos my phone rings. Lie there, unslept, and a balloon of poison bursts over me. I'm furious that I've had no reviews in Fest, List, Metro, Scotsman, 3 Weeks, Herald anything that anyone reads. All round the town, posters are plastered with 5 stars. I'm starless. I don't feel I've had a chance, and I'm furious. And I'm furious that Hils isn't getting me on at After Hours, and the BBC Stand-up Show, and I'm angrier still cos I find it humiliating having to ask all the time. Unable to sleep, I leap from bed, and pummel the wall with a pillow. Then I see my dog cowering in the corner, and I apologise to her, cuddle her, and the voices start Come on. It's only comedy, you're not saving the rain forest. Come on. No one owes comedians a living. Come on. The town is full of people who perform to six people. Come on. You're only angry cos you're impotent. Show me an angry man, and I'll show you a man who feels cornered, powerless. And I think of all the people who feel they're never going to have a chance. Come on. Never succumb to the temptation to become bitter. Come on. Who are you angry with? I'm not angry with Mel, not with Hils, I believe they're all doing they're best. Who else can I be angry with? Myself. And the anger goes, to be replaced by an intense sadness. And once again, I'm back with Jerry Sadowitz, in the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth We did a gig there together, me first, then him. Jerry came on, and tore the place up. Firing out wonderful one-liners; scabrous flights of fantasy; a triumph. And then he left the stage, and, back in our dressing room, sadness settled over him like dew. We were talking about Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, and Jerry said: "I know Hicks got cancer, and Bruce was a smackie, but I sincerely believe what killed those guys was feeling misunderstood. They felt they had something to say, and they couldn't get people to hear. It hurts." 4pm I gotta get this out of my system. I'd love to be a deadpan comedian, but I'm not. I perform with exuberance and warmth, and that works. I use a number of rituals to get to that state. I calm down by helping Rachel and Bobby prepare leaflets. I walk Raff up the mountain. I sleep. I wake. Sing, stretch. Drink tea with three teabags and three spoonfuls of sugar. And I'm walking to the theatre, ready again. It's going to be fine. 10pm Show's going well. 1am I'm back at the flat of James, who I met at the Festival last year. We're talking about space. His friend tells me a theory of comedy which he heard on the radio. In normal life, you see someone slip, they hit their head. In comedy, they slip, and they bounce. Everything's fine. Humans laugh to show the rest of their pack, that the danger has passed. The theory works well for Demitri Martin and his poetic one-liners. His punchlines often contain the words "I'm OK". Eg. "I'm frightened of sharks, but only in a water situation Sometimes you swim, for sport, and sometimes, to not die. Outfit is key. Trousers. Oh dear. Swimming trunks. I'm OK. I'm nude. Could go either way.". I tell about Freud, whose theory was this: laughter is the economy of emotion. The person bounces off the pavement, we laugh, cos in this fantasy world, we don't have to get upset. Freud also says we love comedy cos it reminds us of the freedom of childhood. I think comedy is all about childishness. I'm a bit obvious, cos I'm playing a child onstage. It's better still, when you find the child in the adult. Think of Newman and Baddiel's professors: "that's your girlfriend that is". Friday August 14Things I love about Edinburgh I love walking through the Meadows, and seeing the mountain in front of me. In the evening, it looks like a dozing elephant. It's resting with its belly on the ground, and it's facing out to sea. It's watching out for Vikings coming up the estuary. Protecting Edinburgh. I love waking in the morning, and have my dog put her paws up on the mattress waiting to be greeted. I love going out and buying cappuccino from the booth. I love the company of other comedians. I love to sit in the dark, and wave at them, and smile. I love the smell of hops. They smell like they're being roasted. I love the children walking through the town with tigers masked painted on their face. I love the way they look like such idiots. I love Karen Koren. You couldn't say she's the mother of the festival. She's its pissed aunt. She always looks a little flushed, like someone who's having Happy Birthday sung to them. She's enjoying it, but any second, she could turn nasty. I love Christopher Richardson. I love his Panama hat, and his dog, and his dignity. I love bumping into Dave Gorman late at night. I love the way he kind of nods at me. He looks like a farmer, who's wise, but mad. He's got a shed full of cows, who are growing sheep's wool. Dave knows everything's going to be OK. I love walking towards the show. It's a dangerous time, a sensitive time. By now I feel open, ready. I'm in the hands of the world. I love the way the right things always happen. I'll see a pianist playing "Sunny Side of the Street". Someone will run over and say "saw you last week. Fuckin' excellent." I love the way I pass Richard at the same time, every night. I love arriving at the Pleasance and seeing the people gathering. They're always laughing. They look ready for comedy. I love waiting for the show. I love lying under the stage. I listen to my entry music, and I laugh to myself. I picture people I've met and imagine them laughing. Al, Bryan, Rachel, James Often I picture people who are dead. They laugh too. I love getting the first laugh. I love the first time I deviate from the script. Something happens. Someone says something funny, and suddenly I get excited. I am an imp, ready to trick, ready to tease, and the crowd can see it. I don't know why I keep saying I can't improvise in this diary. I improvise fine. I love improvisation. It makes a show special for that audience. I love finishing the show. I love drinking a beer and knowing my job is done. I love ending up at the Spinning Wheel again. I love those
beautiful women. I love watching the Umbilical Brothers. I love
Paul McDermott, the King of Cheek. Saturday August 15The Festival lasts 26 days, one day for each mile of the marathon. And it is a marathon. Because of Perrier, it's also a race. I've been running along in the pack for a while. I knew there were people ahead. I thought they were Jimmy Carr, Dara... Turns out they're all excluded. They got in a car or something. So who is that running ahead? It's someone new. Demitri Martin. Who else is there? I want to be up with those leaders, but I don't think I can reach them. It hits me, I don't have to stay in the race. I could run off down a side street. I call up all the people I only ever see at Festival Time. Jamie Byng, who published Life of Pi. Mark Cousins, the wonderful film critic. I spent an evening in his flat last year, looking at his pictures of Iraq. My favourite evening of last year. I'd like to see Phil Kay, but I don't know how to find him. You don't need to call Phil. He's instinctive. He'll appear, when the moment is right. 5pm Photocopying my Time Out review. I get chatting to the man in the shop, who's called Paul. I like him. He says he has performers in there all day, and I'm the first one who's smiled at him. Asks to read the review, wants to come, but is worried about money. I tell him to buy one ticket for a friend, and I'll walk him in for free. 9:30 pm Arrive at theatre. See Paul. Meet Tammy his beautiful wife, 10 pm Sold out show. Just manage to get Paul in. Fantastic. Can see him grinning at me from the balcony, willing me on at every turn. Also see Tom McNally, a kind, funny social worker who I befriended two years ago, when he saw Puppy Love five times. 11 pm Drinking in the courtyard with Paul, Tammy, Tom and Tom's friend Emanuella. She's a beautiful Italian, well known in Italian erotic films. Paul is delighted by his evening. "You are hilarious you're a lovely man you're inspiring". Turns out he's always wanted to do social work, but has been rejected. Tom offers him a job. My work is done. I should get home. 1 pm At the Spinning Wheel. A fantastic night. Rhys Darby compering. Good stuff. Note for next year: more voices, more mime, more imaginative journies. Then The Umbilical Brothers. The most impressive comedy I've seen all summer. Shit, that's what I need! Some skills. Next year, you'll see long hilarious mime sequences. Then a woman with Hula-hoops, Isabelle Necessary. Then Gud, starring Paul McDermott, the star of the Doug Anthony Allstars, who were the biggest act in Edinburgh during the early 90s. He's the king of cheekiness. They tear the place. Paul is drunk now, and is keen to big me up further: "these guys aren't funny You're way funnier". Thanks, Paul, but no. Try them again when you're not pissed at 3am. Sunday August 165pm Borrow my sister's car, and drive 17 miles to Tom's house in the countryside. He's having a barbecue with a few friends. Don't know if they're social workers, but they've all got the look of the middle aged liberal. Tie-dye clothing. Old Holborn. A woman called Tina wants to come to my show for free. I tell her I'll do two for one, walk one in for free. Still not good enough. "I could do something for you in return," she says. "OK, what are your skills?" "I'm a gorrilla", she says. "What?" "I dress up as a gorrilla. They're aren't any gorrillas in Edinburgh at the moment." "OK. You can come for free, if you come dressed as a gorrilla. If you leaflet for an hour, you can bring friends". We shake on it. I'm not making money, but I've got a gorrilla on my side. 11pm Sneak into Paul Tonkinson. My favourite stand-up show of the festival. Loads of voices, little impressions, humanity. Midnight I'm going home, when I bump into the ventriloquist Graham Messer, and the actor-impressario Neil Foster, the one who produced and starred in last year's hit, The Dice House. They want to see a fiddler at B Heard, at C Venue. We go. They let us in for free. A small club, but very friendly. Nice room. Bar on one side. Mike starts the show. A pianist who says he'll improvise any tune we want, in the style of Mozart. We suggest Happy Birthday, then Agadoo. He does it. He does it again, facing the wrong way. Then the fiddler, who plays Irish jigs, Cajun music, Jewish
ballads. A guitarist. Then a jazz singer. Then two fiddlers together
do the duelling banjoes from Deliverance. At the end of the show,
Neil asks to perform a poem. He comes up. Explains that he was
in a pub in a forest near San Francisco, and he saw an Irish
fiddler, who finished his set by asking if anyone has a poem.
Neil didn't. Now he does. Does The Highwayman. We all crane forward.
Brilliant. My favourite show of the fringe. I insist on paying
for all our tickets. We walk off into the night jubilant. |
 Chortle
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