Too much condensation - is that a good thing?

It's morning on day 5 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe! And it's raining. Proper rain. Not like what we get in London.

It's going to be a damp day. Down to the very bottom. Damp damp.

Why is it that damp has bad connotations whereas moist sounds more appealing? Moist lips, moist skin, moist hamburger. Oooo, I could sink my teeth into one of these right now.

I'm on a diet. No, not to lose weight (that's not allowed)! but to keep my voice nice and strong through the 24 performances (now 23). So here goes: no soft drinks or fizzy water, no mint, no chocolate, no coffee or tea, no chewing gum, no booze, no dairy. So there's really no point walking into a Starbucks...

Thing is, all the things above are the things I usually have to keep away from food. So it's a double whammy: can't eat too much (my show contains nudity) and can't eat the stuff I normally eat to keep off the stuff I want. Are you still with me?

So it's raining and I can't chew gum or have a big piece of gooey chocolate cake.

Question for the day: who's having or planning to indulge in some deliciously moist chocolate cake today? And who would you share it with? Anybody?

Fly Fly... Err Be Free!!

Today was the first preview of my show at the Fringe. And my first experience flyering for my show!

It's very humbling. You have to roll with it, some people are friendly, others just rude, some want to chat, some aren't interested. Some don't speak the lingo. It's nice though. Very real.

It's a freeing experience. I hope the people who do take the flyers and do come to see the show enjoy it and take something good from it.

So flyering has made me philosophical. Who knew!!

The question for the day: I wonder how many people today showed kindness to a complete stranger? Have a chocolate. You deserve it

Sweat and food

Posted Date: Jul 29 - 4:39 PM

After a good sweaty session at the gym I'm ready to take on the day. Whatever the Universe wants me to explore and find out about. I'm going to pick my way through Edinburgh from my digs to the Fringe Office without stepping into the many little bakeries that line the streets. Very tempting, but not good places for me to go.

Croissant, cup cakes, cloutie dumplings!! Some people compare chocolate to sex. For me, food is more like porn than sex. It's always full of promise but never quite delivers.

And with food, there's no rewind to go back to the best bits over and over again!

I wonder who's watching porn this morning, and who's having a pain au chocolat with their first coffee of the day...

A technicality

I was up at 5:15 this morning. Putting on lashings of stage makeup, then walking with heavy bags through the heavy rain an hour later.

We had our tech at 7. For those of you who don't know the lingo. That's the technical rehearsal which lasts upwards of 4 hours during which the lights are set and the sound levels are adjusted and all the cues are lined up. So that when you do the show, it all happens as if by magic!!!

My director is happy, so I'm happy.

Tired but happy. Anyone else feeling this way? Any one else had a hard boiled egg at lunch?

Making my way

Well, I've done it. Made my way to Edinburgh. By train. 4.5 hours this morning. From London.

So now, it's a matter of doing the tech, meeting people, doing the show, getting more people to come and see the show.... and then doing it all over again (except the tech that is).

I'm making my way. Slowly. Through the new and the unknown. On the cusp of momentous change...

I wonder if anyone else is on the cusp of major personal change. If you are, lets hold hands in cyberspace. And smile at the Universe which makes it all happen.

Packing it all in

Packing is one thing I'm really good at. I've moved house several times, across countries, and once haf way around the globe.

Packing for a weekend is cool too. I get it all to fit into an itsy bitsy bag. It makes people go "wow...".

But packing for a month? What's that about? You need all your stuff but you can't take the kitchen sink. So the world's best packer feels that she's met her challenge.

I've done everything else though today. I get really productive when I'm procrastinating on one particular thing. But I'm going to pack it all in and then I'll be good and ready for the great Edinburgh Festival Fringe adventure.

I wonder what people have packed in their bags this summer that they'd be ashamed to tell their Mum about?
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Closing Time and Tarty Toes Redux

This blog post also appeared in What's on Stage.com

I'm holding an Edinburgh Festival Fringe retrospective. No PR, no invites, no celebrities, no press night. Audience of one. Just me. Sitting at my computer, in my soon to be vacated Edinburgh digs, reminiscing.

Actually vacated is a good word for it. Edinburgh has been vacated! The Royal Mile has reopened to traffic, no signs of posters or rogue flyers anywhere. No more colour coded lineards around the necks of improbably dressed and rather large ladies. No more street performers - good or bad. It's all gone. Down the sink hole or back where it all came from. Most of it to London I'm afraid.
I purposefully stayed in Edinburgh an extra few days so that I could experience it post Fringe. I wanted to breathe in this city in its return to normalcy. Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival is a bit like catching the Queen in fancy dress. It's novel and fascinating at first, but then one longs for the return of tradition and decorum.

So what have I done? With no more one woman show to prepare for (that's a 2 hour warm up and run through every day plus a 50 minute show and some three hours of flyering - every day)I've done what I always do when I have too much time on my hands and no particular focus. I've gone a bit over the top and OCD. I lounged on my couch and watched bad telly. I've done more yoga than is necessary. I've bought a mini kilt in purple tartan (more on that later), and I had a luxury pedicure that lasted two and a half hours and has left me with feather soft feat and the most delightful tarty fushia toenails. Cheap tarty. Perfect!!! To go with my new kilt which looks fabulous beyond words! "Oh, my word!" exclaimed the shop girl admiringly when I showed her.

And this brings me to the single most meaningful gift this wonderful city and its Fringe Festival have bestowed on me. An appreciation of myself as a feminine and girly entity. Not the celebration of the intellectual, or the actress, but a celebration of the woman I've always wanted to be: the girl who is happy to wear tarty nail polish and a mini kilt in purple tartan. More Cyndi Lauper "Girls Wanna Have Fun" than Madonna's "Vogue" but hey - I'm happy.

I'm happy! It's rainy and cold here. But never mind, I'm so grateful to Edinburgh for the lovely welcome, and for looking after me so well.

I've cleaned out the flat. Packed my bags. Ready to go.

Now, it's off to yoga. If nothing else, to show off my tarty toes!

When bubble wrap becomes a fetish

Wrap the bubble wrap around every surface, emphasize the lines with shiny tape, dress it in shiny black pvc, bind it with more shiny tape. Ooooh..... and then add a white label with black writing. Perfect

All packed and ready to go. Well, my set and costume are. They're leaving in a van with some super nice people who will drive it all up to Edinburgh for me. They're called Weaver Hughes Ensemble and they're taking up 3 shows to Edinburgh: Army of Reason, Six wives of Timothy Leary, and Pebbles on the Beach. Check'em out

Next time I see them will be right before my tech at 7am. Pretty scary. But exciting too. Which is what bondage and fetishism are all about.

I wonder who's having a little bondage session this morning...

Contemplating the Fringe from the Outskirts

That makes me think of pettycoats... big frilly ones, with hoops, like in Gone with the Wind. Everyone looks good in them. And your bum can be enormous, no one need ever know.

I'm going up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time, with my one woman show "There's Something in the Fridge that Wants to Kill Me!". Twenty-four performances in 25 days.

So lots to muse about...

What's petticoat in French? Jupon. Sounds more serious. But then, the French take their underwear seriously.

So why am I wearing a polka dot thong from Marks and Spencers?

I wonder what everyone else is wearing today, underneath their petticoats...