Short and Character Building

Man, this is a strange existence and no mistaking. In 24 hours, we went from sitting and miserably analysing why we lost the crowd last night (turns out there were some drunken arses in the front row who annoyed the rest of the audience) to being chuffed to bits about the show and everything to do with it. We did two strong and funny shows (I broke my own personal best (or worst) by corpsing so hard at Willie that I actually cried), got two great reviews here and here, and found out that we're being interviewed by Lauren Laverne for BBC Radio 6 on 16th and have a talent scout from the Montreal Just for Laughs festival coming to check us out on 19th.

So. Effing. Stoked. The ride starts here.

Sven arrives...

Firstly, the sensible stuff. I watched Andrew O'Neill who is and was, as always, ace. By far and away one of the most under-rated comedians on the circuit. Also Josie Long, who is getting all the press and praise she deserves because she is brilliant and, more importantly keeps getting better. If you haven't, see them.

We had a tough audience tonight. Lots of them, but somehow about two thirds of the way through the show, we lost them and never got them back. Being behind a puppet screen means that we can't see the audience, and as a result have no idea what we did or didn't do to make them stop laughing. So we went to the pub to have a quiet post mortem pint to see if we could work it out. It's now about half five, so you can guess what went wrong with that plan. Sven got involved. I could explain who Sven is, but right now sleep seems more important, so I will end this by saying that Will, Kitty and I have just walked from a random roundabout where we got kicked off a bus we probably shouldn't have been on in the first place, which at any other time in the world would be weird, but in Fringe terms is fairly par for the course. Willie will probably blog this and make more sense, but I'm typing this to keep me awake while I eat Bacon Tastys. And I have the weekend to look forward to...

Thoughts from near the end of week one.

Is it Thursday already? Crap, time is going fast over here. Last night was a pick up from Tuesday in some ways--though we had a small crowd for the Arts show, we had a decent crowd for Oppressed People, and Stewart Lee was in the audience, apparently. Only the one review out so far, though we did have this article in the Scotsman, which is pretty good. Sadly, I don't think there were any pics attached, which would have made it extra special, but I have yet to go out and by the paper itself.

Yesterday was a miserable shit ass terrible horrible rainy Scottish day, with the rain switching between heavy and pissy little drizzle. It was impossible to get dry all day long, and there was almost no one up on the Royal Mile to hand out fliers to. Thus, I went to see some theatre at the venue--a production called 'Alexander', which is a play about our Greek friend in two parts. I saw part one, and what I learned was that Greek men were pretty good at A)Shouting, and B)kissing each other. The whole thing was written, directed by, and starred by a nice young lady who encouraged us at the end of the play to book her show. It was kind of like a Greek Lounge act.

Hopefully today the weather will be better, and we'll start getting some crowds in. We've put tickets on the Half Price Hut, which should get us some play, and I'mma send the boys out flyering and Kitty in a low cut shirt just as soon as they get up. We've still got nine boxes of fliers, with about 1,500 fliers in each box to get rid of, so it's bidness time.

I hope you're well, and it's not my baby.

-W

The Come Down

Wow. How quickly the mighty fall. After a kick ass opening night, we found ourselves last night with about nine people in the first show, and seven in the second (five of which were freebies from our venue). To be fair, we did a small section of the show in the city which ended up taking up a lot of our time, so we didn't get nearly as much flyering done as we should have, but it was a pretty sad scene nonetheless.

Today, we pick ourselves up, dust off, and start flyering to try and get some bidness.

In somewhat better news, we got a good review from some students, right here

The Day After (the Night Before)

It felt like the Fringe last night. Opening night of both shows. 11:15p.m. and 12:15 a.m. First show very nearly full, second show sold out. Some of the people from Paradise Green, our venue, came and represented well. They love us, and they love drinking, so they were nice and loud. Oppressed People, shown up here for the first time since last year, went down great (though a quieter crowd than Arts). We sold twelve pounds of badges, which was a couple of drinks. We drank those drinks across the street at Dropkick Murphy's, where Monday night is two pound a drink night. Several venue type people ended up hanging out with us, and the result was our first stumbling out of the bar at 3a.m. night. We waited for a bus, so then got bored and took a cab. Total cost for bus=5 pounds for the 4 of us. Cab=18 pounds. Let the games begin.

Kitty looking suave and subtle.


Won't you drink with us? Two Will's and a Christian (pronounced Christie-Anne). She's Irish and her Dad owns the Guinness factory. Will's only 18. I look inbred. We had fun.

Kitty in Great Peril.

Apparently, at some point, it was decided by the gays that Tom has the gayest ass (shown above).
By the end of the evening, I had sold Kitty for Five English Pounds. They were good times.

The Cock tails

Will is omitting one of the most important details of our cocktail excursion, and that is the drink names.

Jammy Dodger
I thought this was the gayest name on earth, until Will informed me that it's actually the name of a cookie here. A GAY cookie!

Froots Manuva
Huh? Is this some misguided attempt by the Scottish to replicate a terrible Brooklyn accent in print? So, would that make it a Fruits Maneuver? What the hell is a Fruits Maneuver?

Bull Master
This actually reminds me that my new American friends, Eli and Kate, told me that KFC had a product here call the Box Master. Both sound like an ill fated sexual maneuver....Oh, sorry, I mean "manuva."

Woo Woo
Yeah, I see the leprechaun!!! Will actually had one of these. I'm not sure, though, if it is the one that tasted like tires or the one that tasted like Cabbage Patch dolls.

Polish Bullet
I know there is a little ill will towards the Polish here, but, come on. That's just insensitive. Or is it like the Silver Bullet? A frozen, yet, not very bright train crashing through Edinburgh? If that is the case, I'm all on board.

-Kitty

The Cocktail Show (Sunday Preview)

So as you can see from the previous post, Sunday was 'The Great Big Cocktail Show'. While we here at the Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre Company do not endorse the consumption of alcohol before performances, it was our best performance yet. Hmmmm.....

And now, some photos.

Remember how I said we were opposite an Irish Bar and a Sauna? Well here they are. Dropkick Murphy's and Merchant Street sauna. Note the slogan of Dropkick's "Crack is Cool". Yes. Yes it is.

This is the Elephant House, with a big sign saying that this is where Harry Potter was made. It was only later we found out that everywhere in Edinubrgh is where Harry Potter was made. HARRY FRICKIN POTTER!!!1!10!
A bunch of stupid Greeks outside our venue. We hate Greeks. Hate em. So before the show we had almost no money, and went out to one of the few places you can get cheap drinks in Edinburgh--the vodka bar, Revolution, where you can get two cocktails for five pounds. Andy wasn't so sure--

But Kitty was totally up for it.
The gang all joined in--
But after a couple of cocktails, it got weird. It's when Andy gets that look in his eyes.
This was an hour before the show. There had been too many cocktails. There was only one person to blame.

It always seems to come back to Kitty. All that being said, it was our best show to date. So God Bless Cheap Ass Cocktails at the Revolution.