Sellout start to the Fringe

Thankyou the public, the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre began their Edinburgh Fringe 2010 with a sellout show. All 90 tickets sold (though bizarrely a couple of seats remained empty, I remember this has happened before) and a lovely audience who seemed to like it all.

I have to confess I was more nervous before this show than any show I can remember in ages. Having toured our previous show "Goes To Hollywood" all spring & summer, I've become so attached to its great songs, routines and really good ending (it was the show with the Facebook Song, Michael Jackson, The Western, Sweary Poppins and Star Wars) that it's been an incredible wrench to throw it all away and do a totally new hour. I've been full of doubt that the new show isn't as good as the last, though preview after preview has been getting better and better, I still wasn't sure.

But last night, with the brand new closing number getting an airing for the very first time (I recorded the music on the Monday night before we drove up here), and a brand new costume to go with it, which I finished sewing an hour before the show, the hour ended well and they loved us.

Quick notes: A member on the front row asked us to move the set back a bit because they had bad sightlines. This wasn't as greedy as it might sound. Afterwards she came up and had a word and pointed out that, because our new venue has an odd L-shaped seating area, our set was off-centre for half the people closest to the stage and would be better off moved about a foot and a half right. A small detail that won't interest you, but true and I'll be changing that tonight.

The biopic is a star routine of the new show, wherein the Socks improvise the life story of a celebrity suggested by the audience. Tonight it was David Hasselhoff. That will be an interesting knife edge to walk every night, as sometimes it is bound to go less well than others. Tonight it went well.

We were also spurred on by the fact that shows were over-running (we got into the venue 10 minutes late) so we had to keep things tight. With more leisure I hope things will still have the same energy.

There you go, an Edinburgh comedian is totally self-obsessed and immersed in the minutae of something that'll never interest anyone else on the planet. Tell you what, you all just come along and enjoy the show, and we'll stop going on about how it's done and spoiling the magic.

Now, while we wait for the Socks to get their act together to make any new videos, here's a hit from the Edinburgh pit:



PS We did an interview on Real Radio in the afternoon, don't know when it'll be going out, so stay tuned, and we may (just possibly) have some telly on Friday. Will let you know if that goes to plan.