Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

My poor friends, acquaintances and colleagues might have noticed an increase in the frequency of my Facebook updates, blog posts and Chortle contributions (more on which later). I guess the main reason is that after the preview I feel more confident about the show as such, so all my anxieties are now concentrated on the question: "will anybody come to see it?" (of course there is also a deeper explanation, given that I'm an only child and that there must be some reason why I like standing in front of a room full of people with the lights pointing at me and a microphone, but I'm degressing)

So, today I did something a bit desperate, which might even backfire. I used the "media contact list" received from the promoter of the Free Festival to send the following press release:

Italian comedian wishes death to Berlusconi

Announcement made during the London previews of the show "Giacinto Palmieri: Italian misfit" amid rapturous applause.

London-based Italian comedian Giacinto Palmieri started the previews of his Edinburgh Fringe show with these words:

"I don't have any joke on the death of Michael Jackson, but I have some brilliant jokes about the death of Silvio Berlusconi. I can't wait for them to become topical. Hopefully in time for my Edinburgh show. He is lucky that I'm not doing the first week".

The audience, which included many Italian members, demonstrated to be in tune with Mr Palmieri's wishes by laughing, clapping and shouting "Hear! Hear!".

The medical staff of Mr Berlusconi have yet to comment.

Will this cause me problems? Will I look desperate in my attention seeking? I don't know, but it's true that there is no such thing as bad pubblicity, as Richard Herring and Brendon Burns recently discovered (my envy was all too clear from my previous post, even if of course we play in different leagues), expecially when nobody has ever heard of you. Let's see.

Meanwhile, a much safer promotion has come from Chortle, which has published an edited version of my Friday post, with the details of my show at the foot of the article. Now I only have to hope that comedians and critics will be so busy with Edinburgh that my article will remain for a while at the top of the Correspondents section's links. Now, THAT was a bit too much!