Fringe Virgin Part Deux: The Show Must Go On.....

Apologies for those of you who were waiting with bated breath for yesterday's blog post. Frankly I was exhausted. Between walking so far that I think I should be recording that famous Proclaimers song, schlepping a gazillion posters between venue and giant poles on the Royal Mile that by this point are only held up BY THE POSTERS and navigating the swathes of teenage angst that feels like an additional member of our company, I was ready to drop.

This situation was not aided by the fact that I decided to put a wash on at 9pm so that my children (yes my children are here too - I am f***ing crazy) wouldn't look like urchins which meant that I could pop it on to dry straight after and wake up to lovely clean and dry clothes. So I waited and waited till 11pm, even though at this point any sense of coherency was long gone and if I had tried to operate any kind of machinery I probably would have ended up in A&E, when hubby arrived home and took over the unenviable task of waiting for the cycle to end to begin the drying. I could only assume that I had made a mistake when setting the wash to go and popped it onto the Brexit cycle - this cycle starts with a clear purpose but then takes so long you then lose all will to live and stop caring about the outcome you just WANT IT TO STOP.

But I digress.

This morning however I bounded out of bed, ready for action and after a rousing team talk with the gang, Steve having eaten nineteen beige items, Dave with his Falafel and Beryl sat with her face in the cornflakes, we all set off to hunt for people who, although they did not know, wanted to see our show.....and what a show it was...

For today we came across another, unexpected challenge, something that could not have been foreseen but will affect our audience members for the rest of their lives....

Halfway through our performance, just as the neon gloves came out, I noticed a pair was missing and realised that one of our lovely young actors had left the stage, feeling unwell and was unable to finish the show. I bought the house lights up and informed the audience that we would have to cancel the remainder of the show.....

"You do it" said a loud and persistent voice from the stalls (I'm making this sound grander than it is), the voice of a friend (hmmm, questionable), the voice of encouragement (well if I used the word bossy it wouldn't be inaccurate) but even so, in that moment, I knew that this might just work.....

And So, today I made my Fringe debut. It wasn't the performance I planned and frankly being on stage in a dress that was designed for a fifteen year old boy to wear wasn't great for my self esteem but hey, the show must go on.

And Go On It Did.....the cast coped brilliantly with this new and unexpected cast change like seasoned pros, they prompted and improvised, taking our fantastically patient and energetic audience with us - we took participation to the next level! With no sound technician to speak of, the audience provided us with our transition music and we led them all in a questionable version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, complete with falsetto section - it was a triumph. They whooped, they cheered and forgave us all our errors as we stumbled through our tale of magic, mystery (lots of this today!!) and most importantly MAYHEM!!

Tomorrow, I look forward to being back in the technicians chair watching as the full cast nail another fabulous performance and it's worth adding here that our young actor is now fully recovered. Hurrah!

We are on each day at 11.30am at Greenside Infirmary St, Venue 236. Mint Studio.

I promise not to be acting ;-) so come join us!