Tag Archives: Edinburgh Fringe

My life on the Edinburgh Fringe

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This month at the Edinburgh Fringe, I subjected myself to a novel form of torture: I watched the same play 22 times.

It was my own play, Sugar Baby, a one-woman show performed by the mesmerising young actress Holly-Rose Clegg. After months of preparation with Holly and director Katie Haigh Mayet in Paris, I brought the show to the vault of a church in central Edinburgh, converted to a 40-seat studio theatre at the Paradise Green venue.

Looking back on our first experience on the Fringe, which ended today, it would be an understatement to say it’s been a rollercoaster of emotion. Watching the hugely talented Holly perform the first few shows in front of an audience, I was gripped by an irrational terror which was akin to a fear of flying. I was aware of my total lack of control with her in the role of pilot – if she decided to crash land the plane, there was nothing I could do about it.

We’ve had the full Fringe experience, from an audience of two for our world premiere (and both of them were my friends), to 34 at the end of the first week. Over the first three weeks before the box office began to trail off in the final week, the theatre was half full on average. That’s way better than we’d been led to expect. I heard it said that the average Fringe audience is 6. But the venue had told us, as newcomers to the world’s biggest arts festival, to budget on a third full.

I knew before we arrived in Edinburgh that I was going to lose money – everybody does unless you’re here with one of the shows that arrive already garlanded with stars. The expenses included accommodation for the three of us, in a grim Edinburgh suburb that makes Trainspotting look glamorous, our travel, and paying the venue for the month. Even with a crowdfunding campaign behind us I was looking at a financial black hole. I realised I was not alone when casual conversations with other participants quickly moved to the question: how much have you lost?

It comes down to how you get noticed amongst the 3,300 plays vying for punters’ attention – even our own venue was running a total 65 plays. I heeded advice and hired a PR agent who secured us press attention and (positive) reviews in a couple of major outlets. But the first thing you discover on arrival in Edinburgh is that “flyer” is a verb and that word of mouth is king. For me, our daily flyering – often in the pouring rain – was one of the most daunting, but also the most exhilarating, of our Fringe experiences.

For every person who brushed you aside, or explained that they were already completely booked up, others would engage. The Royal Mile was a mob scene of flyerers and tourists. Every day I would join the crowds flyering at the Half Price Hut, where sometimes there were more Fringe participants than potential spectators. Then there were the free tickets handed out near our venue as the witching hour of our performance grew nearer. My phone told me I was clocking up an average 15,000 steps per day.

So why did I do it? I felt that the subject of my play, the role of the food companies in the global epidemic of obesity and diabetes, had plenty comic mileage and deserved a wider debate. That leads of course to the next question, would I do it again? I’ve said to friends who made the journey to support us in our adventure, Never again. The most distinctive memory for me is the clatter of hundreds of empty bottles being collected around the clock by the Edinburgh binmen, invariably outside our theatre when Holly reached the most poignant part of the play. But the Fringe is like a drug – as I pack my trainers and anorak I realise that you can leave Edinburgh, but Edinburgh doesn’t leave you.

What’s the date of the next Brighton Fringe?

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Guilty Secrets and the Road to the Fringe: 2

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This is the point where reality bites. I’m just back from a three-day training course in one-woman show in the UK, with a brilliant guy who doesn’t mince his words. That’s what you want, right from a teacher? Except that the first thing he said was to “get rid of Anne”. He was convinced that the heroine of the Guilty Secrets script as written – which he slated as “too expository” about my “pet issue” ( of toxic sugars) – was a thinly disguised version of me. At this point I did dare to say that as a journalist all I wanted to do was to exploit what I saw as the comic potential of said issue, but he was already suggesting that I should change the protagonist, make it male, ethnic, anyone but “me”. By the time I’d rewritten chunks in time for the session next day, the protagonist was now the vegan 22 year-old Mimi, the daughter of the alleged “me” character, Susie. This was deemed to be an improvement, and at the end of that session, my tutor says, “go on, surprise yourself”. This proved to be the best advice of the course, and I think for my writing in general. By the third day, we were looking into Mimi’s soul and the dark world of addiction. And yet Guilty Secrets is still a comedy: I was in stitches watching him play Mimi and Susie gorging on vegan chocolates, or a scene where Mimi is arrested. This brings me to an insuperable problem thrown up by the new script, however: there is no way that I could ever be credible by playing a central character in a monologue who is a 22 year old woman, no matter how much training I invest in.

Incidentally, here’s a link to an excellent 7 minute feature on a one man show, a cautionary tale on what NOT to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcyJW-GeMDc

So where does Guilty Secrets go now? First, I must finish the script, and consult with my lovely actress friend Katie who’d offered to direct, and who had of course discreetly flagged up the obstacles as she saw them in our first rehearsals. But all is not lost. Stay tuned.

Guilty Secrets and The Road to the Fringe: 1

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This is my new blog on taking my one-woman show, Guilty Secrets, to the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2017. I saw a couple of superb one-woman shows there this year. One was Angel, a powerful piece about a pacifist Kurdish law student turned fighter in the war on ISIS, and the other, Jane Eyre, An Autobiography, which movingly captured the Bronte novel. In both shows, the solo performer played different roles in a long-form monologue. This got me thinking about the comic potential of my own novel Food Fight, a send-up of the food industry, as a show for next year’s Fringe. I reckon that its theme of the perils of hidden sugars in our food is still pretty topical and could be engaging in a live show. So I wrote to the writer and director of Angel who immediately replied that he already had plans for next year’s Fringe but that he’d try to come to my show. Until that moment I’d assumed that I’d find an actress. But what if I do it myself? And that, dear reader, is why I’m writing this occasional blog to chronicle the process from start to finish.

The Fringe is so well organised that there is an exhaustive guide for would-be participants, and its main attraction is that it’s open to all. Essentially, I need to get my ducks in a row by next January. For me that means having the material ready as soon as possible, crunching down Food Fight to a minimum of colourful characters. I’ve whittled them down to four: Susie, the naive heroine who is duped into marketing an addictive product (the boxes of chocolates called Guilty Secrets) and then turns whistleblower; Barney, her evil American boss; Mimi, her vegan daughter who rails against Big Food but with whom Susie is eventually reconciled; and Mark, the lawyer who comes to Susie’s rescue. The idea is to depict in dramatic, and hopefully comic, form one woman’s struggle against a multinational which puts profits above public health.

What are my qualifications for doing a stage show as a professional journalist, I hear you ask? I remember being crushed, when I was working in Montreal as a cub reporter, when a colleague mentioned to a friend – who of course passed on to me – that I was a “gifted amateur” because I hadn’t had formal training in journalism. So you could say that the same damning verdict applies here. My acting abilities haven’t been on display since I was in Dramsoc at London university. (My singing in one show even captured the attention of my first husband, but as he said recently to the Daily Mail, “enough said” about our failed marriage, so let’s not go there.) Now I’m wondering whether all those tap dancing lessons I’ve been taking might come in handy. Nothing ventured, nothing gained so I’m reaching out now for comic training and help in developing Guilty Secrets. Initial reactions have been hugely encouraging. I’m also pitching to independent TV producers to film the process of mounting my one-woman show from start to finish. If any of you out there are reading this – get in touch!

But first – to the script. Please Like this page or follow me, and spread the word, if you’re interested in future updates.