Kev F comic art: Dumfries

I knew my one off gig at the Big Burns Supper in Dumfries was going to be a loss leader, but I never guessed quite how expensive it was going to end up being. This was what the screen of my laptop looked like after I’ve taken advantage of the offer of putting bags in the hold on my Easy jet flight home on Monday afternoon. Not thinking how vulnerable my laptop might be inside my suitcase, it having been fine every journey before. I let it go in the hold, and when I got back home I found the lid was slightly dented and the screen looked like this. On Wednesday I have to get a new laptop or get the screen fixed.

The Big Burns Supper event I was to be part of was a bit of a mystery to me. Was it a festival like the ones they have in a field, or more like those Fringes that take place across a town? A bit of both, it transpired, with my show taking place in a converted packing container which made an efficient little black box theatre. Unfortunately it was right next to the main tent with bands and music on. So, as I discovered when I went to watch a magic show in there on Saturday night, it suffered total noise bleed the like of which you’ve never heard.

Playing on Sunday afternoon in Dumfries meant that I had to fly up on Saturday and back on Monday, which made a one hour gig take up three days. But I thought I could use the getaway experience as an excuse to get some writing done. I managed a couple of gags and a couple of blogs I’m afraid. But the budget worked out a lot better than it might have done. With a Holiday Inn costing only £25 a night, flights at a little over £20 each way, £25 for a hire car for 2 days, and £25 for parking, it might not have been. Impossible to break even on this gig. As it happens, with about 20 punters in the container, I might not quite have managed it. But at least it eased me into the year’s performances, and was a good gig.

It turned out to be my second show of the year, having headlines Mark Olver’s Belly Laughs charity show at Spike Island the previous Tuesday, sharing a bill with an impressive array of 7 other really good acts, all Bristol based. Truly the Bristol wave of comedy has gone from strength to strength while I’ve not been paying attention.

In Dumfries I ended up seeing almost as many shows as I saw last year in Edinburgh, watching the magic show on Saturday then a one man dramatic monologue about a murder in Cyprus, both battling with noise bleed, then after my show I stuck around for James Cary’s show about comedy and religion. I even bought his book, which is very good, and we chatted for a bit as our shows crossed over.

The Socks gave them an edited version of Superheroes (removing The Brother subplot, Avengers Reel, FF and Thanos) with Magic and Earth Song inserted. I thought this would work as a sort of Best Of, and it went down really well, but I’d have been more satisfied if I’d just given them Superheroes in its entirety. All good though, and both of this year’s shows have helped me back on the Socks horse.

It’s been a funny old January and no mistake. The funeral and clearing out the house in Kibworth, coupled with trying to work from home and having fewer schools lined up than this time last year, has made it a low earning and hard going few weeks. I’ve been putting lots of stuff on eBay, generating very little money, making it seem like a time wasting cry fo help as much as anything constructive. I hope to get the year back into its stride when February comes.