Friday 8th August 2008

Well, what a day! Lots to tell.

We started early today so that we could flyer on the High Street (aka the Royal Mile). Anne, our trusty dresser and ready -for -anything ASM( always has a kirby at hand), had rallied her fabby daughter Mairi and her pals Marie and Hannah to give us a hand. Trish and me were in our period underwear, and we’d raided the costume basket for caps for the girls.There is a pic but I haven’t quite got to grips with the technology yet. It will be here anon. Anyway, we all had interesting experiences engaging with Joe Public. One guy; big, Hell’s Angel type, built like a tank, black heavy-metal Tshirt, shades and longish shaggy grey hair in a pony tail, strolling down the Mile with his woman, seemed a likely target.

‘I think you’re going to love this show,’ was my opening, charming gambit.

‘No I won’t,’ said he after a swift glance at the flyer in my hand.

‘I know you you will,’ said I, determined to stay cheery and positive.

‘No, I fuckin’ won’t.’ came the reply.

I nearly ended myself laughing!

Most folk, on the whole were very approachable and getting into the spirit of the buzz on the Mile… performers of all sorts out punting their shows; contortionists, singers, acrobats, actors .

We jumped a taxi back to the venue to get ready for the show. Get-in time is 17.20hrs. we were all ready at 17.25, but one of the lights on the rig blew, so the techy’s from the venue had to go get another light which delayed our start time a wee bit. So there we were, Trish and I giving it laldy. It was really cooking tonight. Trish was on stage, playing Lizzie Paton, Burns’ first lover, a foul mouthed lassie who helped around the Burns household. Anyway, in the middle of singing one of Burns’ bawdy songs, ‘Wha’ll mow me now’, just as she sang the word c***t, the fire alarm went off! Trish said after she’d thought it was the politically correct police after her. Anne had to step in and stop the show, clear the screens and usher the audience quickly out through the emergency exits. There is no confirmation of the rumour that the men hot-footed it first when they realised the room was called ‘The COCKBURN’!

That was it for the night. The wait for the all clear from the Fire Brigade( out on Charlotte Square) meant that we couldn’t continue without scuppering the schedule for all the other companies that were coming after us;( they run a tight ship at our venue). All our audience members( all six of them) were offered comps for a future performance. Let’s hope they come back. Their feedback was unanimously positive.

We all felt a bit flat on the train home, faintly unfulfilled . But we cheered ourselves up by singing theme tunes from old children’s TV programmes, like: Belle and Sebastian, Follyfoot, The Flashing Blade and On White Horses. Yes, I know, we’re giving ourselves away here; we worked out that our combined age between the four of us is 186!