Happy ending

So, here I am, on the train back to London. The last performance went again really really well, I thanked the audience for these two wonderful weeks and the voice was indeed broken, but I avoided tears. I said goodbye to Ashley Freeze, who commented: "You have done so well this week, you should really be proud of yourself". Bless him, his support and advice have been really precious for me, I'm sure we'll meet again "on the circuit". I'm sorry that I didn't say goodbye to "Moz", his dark humor and hints of cynicism have been a nice corrective to my sometimes rose-spectacled view of the Fringe. By now he is probably celebrating not being a cannibal any more and he is probably called Michael or something like that. If you are reading this, please get in touch. After the show I felt completely empty, depleted of the purpose that propelled me like a bullet for the past two weeks. The sight if me might have been included into those "ghost tours" they sell to tourists. Which reminds me of the best piece of involuntary humour I heard in ages. Two tourists told me, completely staight-faced: "We went on a ghost tour but it was all hot air". By the way, if you want to see a real ghost in Edinburgh just look for a Fringe performer who has finished his run. That's why I decided to leave straigth away, I didn't want to be an undead in a place that saw me so concentrated and full of purpose. See you next year, Edinburgh, I can't wait. Regarding this blog, I decided to keep it alive, you might be curious to see what happens next. And I'm as curious as you are.

I was wrong: it's going better!

One more broken record today: £ 65. I know, this is starting to sound like the Financial Times, but "Moz" did tell me: we should float you on the stock market! Behind those numbers, however, they are laughs, compliments, people leaving my show satisfied of having spent with me half-hour of their very precious Fringe time. I was particularly happy that today's was a good show since Anthony Dewson was in the audience, he is a brilliant comedian and a very good and enthusiastic promoter. Anthony, if you see Max Turner please tell him that I'm not a deluded man. That disastrous Monday performance looks so far away today, as if it happened to somebody else, but I need to remember "history" in order not to repeat it. As always with holidays, when things start to go really well it's time to go home. Tomorrow I'm going to thank the audience. I just hope I'm not going to break down in tears like an old drama queen.

It couldn't go better!

Sorry for the delay in the updates, but I have been very busy. By the way, it's going really really well, today I broke my collection record: it's now £ 54. I know what you are thinking: you can never trust comedians, they are only in it for the money. But the truth is that money is the easiest thing to quantify, easier than laughs or (for a non-ticketed show) even people. And I have recognized a reliable correlation between the size of the laughter and that of the collection. Today the room was almost full, there were maybe 5 or 6 seats available. The flyer with the reviews stapled to it is working miracles, even if it means that I have to spend an awful lot of time cutting and stapling. Which explains the length of this post. Please stay tuned, anyway, now that my friends Laura and Luisa have left (thanks again for the great company) I'll try to update this more frequently.

"Giacinto has charm as Tuscany has wine" (The Scotsman)

Hectic days... I have got a review from The Scotsman, in the person of Kate Copstick, who apparently is a very respected and influential critic. It's only free stars, but it's full of praise and quotable sentences. My show is "lovely" and "a charming, entertaining Fringe experience". Even if the opening seems to suggest that I'm not as smart as Jimmy Carr... I have never felt more offended. Anyway this review is great for me, all comedians consider Kate Copstick one of the biggest catches as reviewers go and it confirms three important things: 1) I exist; 2) I'm really doing a show at the Fringe; 3) my show is not a complete irrelevance. By the way, judge for yourself, here it is. And the four stars review for BroadwayBaby from Catherine Paver has been published on the first page of the printed edition. Catherine, if you are still reading this, thank you again and congratulations: you are now a printed critic. These good reviews came to save my show from the lowest point in its history, which was yesterday. I had finished my flyers and very few people came and I let an unplesant off-stage event just before my show affect my on-stage performance, something that many productions of "Pagliacci" should have taught that it's not supposed to happen. My "brother in open spots arms" Max Turner came to see me, I have great consideration for him as a comedian and he is a nice and clever man so I was sorry to disappoint him. I want to thank him for coming but I want to thank even more the bilions of people in the world who made the right decision of not coming yesterday. But after the good reviews, today I had an almost full room again and a good performance. And Mario Pirovano came to see it and he seemed to enjoyed it too. I have also 2000 more flyers and I stapled the reviews to some of them, thanks to the precious help from my friends Laura and Luisa who are here from Italy after having spent few days in my London flat. Their company is very important, it helps me to spend some nice non-Fringe realted time with intelligent and lovely people and to see things in a better perspective. I need to go flyering now... but things are really looking great!

Back to normality but loving it

I was a bit worried about how I would take the climb down from yesterday's peak. Sunday is the toughest day for my slot and this morning there was nobody around. The audience was small, but better than what I feared, and they absolutely loved it. Equally importantly, I absolutely loved doing my show. And there was somebody taking notes all time, at least when she wasn't busy laughing, which makes for a very promising combination. The only drama of the the day was that when I arrived the room wasn't ready, all the chairs were on the stage and I had a hell of a time disposing them in rows. This happened because the show before mine was canceled. The saddest thing on the Fringe is seeing a show failing. Somebody made a mistake on the program with the ending dates, so Dough from "A sketchy show" had nobody coming at all yesterday and I guessed today he decided to pull the plug (but don't take my word for it, I don't want to add to his woes). There is no Schadenfreude there, we are really supporting each other, apart from the practical advantages of having a successful show before yours. Dough, if you are reading this, keep it up, it will go better next year.

Full house (almost) and triumphal show on the day of the recording... the God of the Fringe really exists!

Yesterday I was sort of praying for something that would give this show a real boost. Well, one of the reasons why I don't believe in praying is that it stops you from working hard to achieve your objectives, so what I did instead was running the heaviest flyering campaign so far. The main stimulus was that I had agreed for the show to be video-recorded today and I needed a full house. And the strategy worked beautifully, besides maybe the famous word of mouth is starting to kick in as well. So I had an almost full house (only the front row was empty and few seats here and there), probably the biggest crowd seen this year in that room at any time, let alone at lunchtime. I asked the audience to wait five minutes longer because I didn't want any late comer, so when I went on stage somebody commented on the size of the audience and the long wait by shouting: "it should better be good"! As a result, for the first time in ages I was very nervous, which in a way is a good thing given that I'm not doing this for the comfort of safety, so unfortunately I ruined my opening line. But I recovered very well and the show was a triumph. Well, at least this time you will not need to take my word for it: I'm sure I will pester everybody I know (and many I don't, such as comedy promoters) with requests to watch this recording. To use one of those beautifully graphic expressions that the English language is so full of: I'm as happy as a pig in shit.

An expetional normality, friends in the audience and the wait for an (happy?) event

Yesterday I wrote that things were starting to become really interesting, but today I'm worried that this blog might become quite boring. Truth is that I'm becoming reliably good. Today I had an audience of 15-20, which I learned to consider good even if not exceptional, and the show went well. The only event worth of notice was the visit of my friend and ex impro coursemate Fiona with her husband. Now, I really need to apologize with Fiona's Husband for never remembering his name, but my short memory with faces and names was pointed out during the show by an audience member after I asked her origins even if she had already told me she was an Irish woman living in Italy when I gave her the flyer. I was quick to reply: "I'm sorry, but with such a big fanbase...", which gained me a big laugh and even a hint of applause. By the way, Fiona and Fiona's Husband were very supportive, I know they are reading this so I want to thank them again. I guess to shake things up I really need that bloody review. If I'll ever have children I don't think I'll wait for the birth of my first child with the same trepidation. I hope that if and when it will come out it will not have too many stars missing, but I'll love it never the less. What are all these reviewers doing all day? I'm coming to the conclusion that the Fringe is some sort of Egocentrics Anonymous. Everybody in turn walks to the centre of the room and shouts: "My name is XXX and I'm at the centre". Then they look at each other and realize that they can't all be right at the same time. And they recover. Well, sort of, otherwise they wouldn't come back to the Fringe to rock the world again with their shows. And the fact that I'm an egocentric doesn't mean that the world doesn't really turn around me. The problem is convincing it that it does. One audience member, and one critic, at a time.