Since I am an outcast of Scottish comedy and both Free Fringe organisations I thought my chances of doing a show at Edinburgh this year were zero and although I ended up getting a slot on a comedy agency’s venue, in a way I was right.
I had applied to Mirth Control on the off chance that I would get a slot as nowhere else would take me. I was a bit surprised when with about six weeks to go to the start of the festival they said they had an hour available from 7-8pm for the first six days of the festival.
I thought I may as well try and do something and so I decided to read poems from my book, Buckin’ Cunny Funt because I thought if the crowd is small then it takes the pressure of big laughs all the time and so I called my show Tales of Insanity, which meant I could just tell stories if I felt like it in the moment and the energy was good.
I never made up any flyers as they usually go straight into a bin but I did intent to hand out business cards where punters could find details of the gig on my website. I got three posters printed, each one similar but with different polaroid shots, and put them up in the bar for people to see when they were attending others shows in the building.
However, much like 2010 when I done a show at The Argyle Bar which was not in the main area for shows, this time I didn’t research exactly where The Royal Scots Club was located. It turns out it was quite far from the action and practically impossible to flyer someone in the Royal Mile and expect them to turn up in Abercromby Place, a good twenty minute walk away at least.
I thought I could hand out Mirth Control programmes as my show details were in there but they didn’t turn up until night five and so for my first night, no-one turned up.
I was going to use the time to record me doing some poems into my camera for my website but one of the Mirth Control guys sat up the back of the room on his laptop and so I felt a bit intimidated to do them as he already told me what he thought of some other acts and on one he said, “She is very talented but she needs help with writing as I couldn’t believe she would do material like that”. I thought that’s what he may say about me too!
Here are the three variations of promo videos I made of which I shared just the first one to help get people to the show the next night.
The Photos
Cheers!
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