Colds, clogged drains, and cancellations - a tough first week

This has been an unexpectedly challenging first week at the Fringe. Definitely the most problematic week since 2009 (when we woke up to an early phone call from home telling us our flat had been entirely flooded out by a leak from upstairs, a disaster that took till the end of the year to repair, and which we’ve never quite got over). So far no ceilings have fallen in, as far as we know, but if they were to, this would be the year they’d choose to do it.

We started with Hev having a severe allergic reaction to whatever she ate on the journey up, or on the first day here. Her throat was swollen and she was shivering and shuddering in the most worrying way. Calls to NHS Direct and visits to pharmacists found us Piriton, Kalms, and various things that are helping in a small way, but we still have ongoing problems with what Hev can eat these days. She’s worried one of the things she could be allergic to is sunflowers - having bought some to decorate the flat, and cooked our first meal in sunflower oil rather than our usual extra virgin - so I had to take the clutch of sunflowers out of the flat and resdistribute them. You’ll probably still spot a few in odd places around the Royal Mile/St Marys Street area (hence the photo above).

Talking of changing the subject, the plumbing was blocked so we had to get a man in. When we arrived in the flat it had a pooey smell emanating from the kitchen, which cleared up after a bit of use. But then we found the sink wouldn’t drain, and when the washing machine emptied, it emptied up through the sink. I found myself scooping buckets of water from the filling sink and chucking them out of the window. Luckily it’s been raining for the first three days we’ve been here, so nobody noticed. A quick visit by the plumber sorted that one.

Then on day two of my show I’ve managed to get a cold, The Edinburgh Cold. I could feel it burning around the back of my throat on Thursday and on Friday I was fully colded-up and in danger of losing my voice. By taking it easy on the flyering* - which I can’t do silently,  try as I might - and by treating my throat carefully and doing warming up exercises in the falsetto voice all the way to performance time, I got through and had a great show on Friday (day 3).

Saturday was always going to be harder for the voice because, during the day, I’d lined up a Comic Art Masterclass at Meadowbank Library near Falkirk. I did that, and it went well, but I could feel the toll being taken on the voice. Never forgetting that date last year at the Bill Murray where I had to cancel the gig - first time ever - I knew I had to avoid over-exertion or I could totally wipe out my performing voice. But it was Saturday, and if I didn’t flyer hard I wasn’t going to get a sellout. We always get a sellout on the first Saturday, without fail**.

Reader, this year we failed. I simply couldn’t spend as many hours flyering as was needed (I did about two and a half hours in all), and critically I couldn’t do the hour in the run up to the show, when I usually breeze round the tables in the bar outside the venue reminding everyone that our show’s starting soon. That always whips up a good few stragglers, but it also uses the wrong part of my voice box. And from 7.30 till the start of my show at 10.30 I was having to speak, or try to, entirely in the falsetto voice.

I say speak. At 7.30 I had only a whisper coming out, and my falsetto voice was a wheezy croak. Never before have I had to coax a voice out from such an unpromising start. But by golly I did it, and am pretty bloody proud of myself. Our audience may have been our lowest first Saturday since 2013**, but the voice held up throughout. During the show The Socks didn’t even mention the lost voice situation, which we had done the previous night, and the audience were none the wiser and had a great show. I think there were reviewers in that night. So, if they give us poor reviews, and we drop down a star or two, I’ll just be able to smile silently to myself in the knowledge that they were watching an act that, three hours earlier, had no bloody voice. So there.

(At time of typing, 8.30 Sunday morning, I have no voice again, having done nothing more than whisper so far. And, of course, the cold has moved on to the tickly cough stage. So let us look forward to a repeat performance of the threatened performance again tonight).

So we’ve had colds, we’ve had clogs, but now, for the first time we have cancellations.

For the first time ever at the Fringe I’m cancelling shows, on Wednesday and Thursday, because I have to fly down to England to see Mum. She’s been deteriorating over recent weeks and at the end of the week had another of a succession of falls which has meant her going into hospital and realising she’s not going to be going back home. As she said, when we spoke on the phone on Saturday morning, “it’s time to put our plans into operation”. So, though hopefully she could have a long time ahead of her, she wants to see us and get her affairs in order while she’s still compos mentis (the cancer now having spread to her brain) and that’s what I’ll be doing in the middle of the week. Jude, who’s been on holiday in Spain for the last two weeks, has been dealing with more of it than I have, long distance, and goes to see Mum today (Sunday). 

Obviously the Mum situation hangs over everything, and has been the biggest concern, with Jude, Hev and I knowing we couldn’t have picked worse times to be in other countries. But it couldn’t be helped. I’m glad I was able to visit Mum in Kibworth last week (blimey, it was literally only seven days ago, it feels like an age) and help her in the small ways I could. Let’s see what else I can do this week. Two shows cancelled, but hopefully the punters will come on another day (there are also 4 comps issued on those days, which are bound to be reviewers, fingers crossed they’ll reschedule), and I’ve had to cancel, or hopefully move, a comic class too.

Doing the Edinburgh Fringe makes us all a bit self-obsessed, so I apologise for this maudlin indulgent screed when so many people have so many worse problems going on in their lives. As it is, we’re both quite cheerful up here, and the Socks have been having great shows with fabulous audiences. Onwards and upwards, it’s Sunday and I need to sprook tonight’s show for all I’m worth.

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th (not Aug 8 & 9)

* I’m writing this blog on a Stickie, which has an infuriating spell-check. It won’t accept the word flyering and keeps changing it. So, as far as it’s concerned, I’ve been flying down the Royal Mile all week. It’s also changed pooey to pokey, and colded-up to folded-up, which is something I haven’t been. Yet.

** Legend, and poor memory, told me we always sellout the first weekend. In fact we only did that in 2010. We had sellout first Fridays on 09, 10, 12, 13, 14 & 15, but only sold out the Saturday in 09, 10 and very nearly in 16. Last night in fact equalled 2013’s Socks In Space and was two tickets short of 2015’s Minging Detectives. So maybe I didn’t have to worry about my grossly negligent under-flyering after all.