Signing-on and Signing-out

I've signed on. I haven't done this since leaving university, but since I'm technically unemployed, I appear to be eligible for some benefits. At the very least, I get cheap cinema tickets.

There's a curious selection of free magazines, including Pathfinder - "for career changers from all walks of life", but blatantly for ex-servic people, full of articles about how to leave the army and use your resettlement fund to become a recruitment consultant/kinky shoe saleswoman.

Among all the slightly weirdly worded adverts was one for Ex-Mil recruitment (http://www.ex-mil.co.uk/). They're currently looking for an accountant who has experience of auditing in "a hardship location". Could this be you?

There's also an enticing backpage advert asking if you want the be "The Face of Munters. Munters is the world's number one organisation in damage restoration."

Awkward is the wrong ballet dancer 2

"Hi! Do you remember me? Have you got a show on? I'd love to see it."

And so, feeling like the toad I am, I hand him a flyer and watch him happily bound off to see Chav, the Musical.

Of course I remember you, I think sadly. Last time I saw you I was having sex with your ballet dancer boyfriend while you slept next to us in the bed.

Hmm. If he comes and sees the show, I'm going to feel really guilty. But if he brings his boyfriend with him...

English Bards and Scots Reviewers

Our show's had a curious relationship with reviewers. We had The Scotsman in on our second night. He laughed a lot. The review never appeared.

We had another reviewer who sat down in the front row, opened their notepad, clicked their pen ominously, and, glaring grimly at our actor, made occasional notes with weighty significance. "Like a fucking driving test," sighed Paul afterwards.

Another reviewer sneezed throughout the play, managing a final explosion all over her notebook. We think she was from "Three Weeks" a daily sheet that, from the sheer number of contributors, manages to publish both the best and worse reviews ever written. One opened with the word "Eliding".

But so far the reviews that we have had have been positive. Even the one in The Stage. When we'd read it three times, and discounted the weird factual innacuracies.

Our audiences have been peculiar. We built up over the first week to where 20 people was a low crowd. And then, all those lovely people went home, and we were suddenly playing to six people. Six nice people who laughed loudly, but six people night after night. Apart from one night when we had twelve and thought we'd gone to heaven. By the end of the week, we'd built it up to nearly 36. And then that batch of people went home and we started all over again. Seven people on Monday, twelve on Tuesday, forty-six last night. Including the James Bond fanclub and a camera crew.

Of course, our actor's completely unaffected by it all. But that's because he's taken his contact lenses out and is performing to a blurry haze.

Blogging elsewhere

I'm sporadically writing for the Guardian Edinburgh blog. Comments so far include some Italian poetry and the word "nonce". So, no change there.

The sound of no hands clapping

Audiences are funny things - our play's been ticking along quite nicely, with audiences building gently towards 30 (which ain't shabby for the fringe), and then suddenly on Saturday night... six.

Luckily, they were a nice six and laughed loads, but still... six. This isn't the worst - everyone in our venue's still talking about the cast who played their hearts out to an audience of one... until halfway through, when he stood up and walked out. In dark moments, I try and imagine the looks on everyone's faces - did he meet their eyes as he left? Did they plead silently for him to stay? Did they carry on the play after he left? Or did they wait till he was out of earshot and then quietly peter out?

Last night, we had 36, which was enormously reassuring. Including, wonderfully, the staff of James Bond magazine (which, rather marvellously appears to be called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). I now possess a picture of the magazine's editor standing outside the Pinewood water tank, and, more valuably, the reassurance that my show is factually accurate.

I'm falling in love with our audiences. If I had my way, I'd invite my favourite audience members back at the end - I rather think they'd like each other. They'd include the sweet lesbian couple who laughed like drains, the giggling film students, and the drunk girl with pink hair who suddenly shouted out "Fucking hell! I'd forgotten about the bagpipes!".

Flyering God

It's no longer good enough to just hand out a flyer in Edinburgh – suddenly, you've got to really BELIEVE in the show. It's like there's suddenly 15,000 new religions in town.

Wherever you go, a wide-eyed student pounces on you – and delivers a sermon to go with his flyer. To you, it may just be another flyer with a picture of a scowling comedian, but to them he's the comedy messiah.

With a shining zeal you'll be asked about your kind of comedy and assured, “Great – he's just like Josie Long and Robin Ince, but really cutting edge and aggressive. Especially for a Canadian.” And he probably has a big gold calf too.

It can take minutes to get away from each chugging limpet, and the cumulative effect is draining. I watched a couple sat at the Pleasance bar having a row – constantly having to break off and smile politely as the latest show was flogged to them.

Of course, I'm shit at flyering - I just end up yelping at tourists, and the other day I told someone our show was a musical. Faced with another afternoon of torment, I invented "horizontal flyering". I went and hid in a gay sauna. It wasn't a complete waste - I took some flyers with me, so maybe I've convinced a couple of charming strangers to come.

Apparently...

There's a heatwave in London. None of that in Edinburgh, thank you very much. While people in London strip down and complain about air conditioning, festival goers are frantically buying coats and venue staff have donned cagouls. Of course, the locals are unaffected, pottering happily around in t-shirt and shorts, sparing the occasional pitying glance for bedraggled actresses, sniffing miserably at bus stops in their sodden ponchos.

More play stuff

.... And the Festival's finally started. Even we've got an audience.

We've got past the grimness of the second night - we started with an audience of two, but had reached double figures ten minutes in - and last night we had a crowd of 27, and our first walk outs.

We actually adored our walk-outs. Ten minutes in they shook their heads sadly, nodded grimly, and slipped away so quietly no-one noticed. Bless 'em.

Of course, ten minutes later we had our first drunk stumble-in. Somehow he slipped past the venue staff to stagger in, wheezing and tottering, before collapsing uncertainly across the back row, where he lay panting like a trapped whale for a few minutes before waking up, blinking, belching softly and leaving.

The Festival suddenly has people – rather than just performers flyering each other hysterically. It's been a whole day since I've had a free ticket shoved at me by an old man clad in a feather boa.

Now that there are people, a venue's character really emerges. The Stand, for instance, is a small comedy club that's made itself the home of amiable late night comedy on the fringe. It's always crowded, but has a friendly, pubby atmosphere. People don't mind standing – especially not if it's next to someone famous.

The Assembly's a different beast entirely. It's got an excellent programme, but the venue has an airport-like love of tedious queues, eagerly policed by students with searchlights and attack dogs. The other day we were trying to find the end of the queue for the excellent Robin Ince (through the main hall, along the corridor, round the corner, second left, up the stairs). Rick went the wrong way and ended up in the theatre itself. Which was completely empty.

The Pleasance is the funkiest – this year they've decorated their courtyard with thousands of plastic windmills.

Edinburgh update

So, we're taking a play up to Edinburgh this year. We've got a script, a director, a great venue and a lovely timeslot.

The one thing we're missing (and have been for a while) is an actor. We're aiming for a famous one - sadly our budget stretches to a nice hotel room, but no pay. This proves unsurprisingly off-putting.

Typical of this is the answering machine message my producer's just been left from one of the country's top board-treaders:

"Hello there, it's XXX XXX here. You've very kindly sent me a great script. I can't do it, and here's why - I'm getting divorced, it's the unhappiest year of my life, and apart from that I'm being clobbered for an enormous amount of alimony at the moment... And that's the only reason why I can't be in Edinburgh with you, but I'd love to. Many apologies... unless you can come up with a busload of money."

Plan B was that one of us would play the part of David Niven. Sadly, the best person for that turns out to be our director, Kate.