Happiness is selling-out on a night you didn't expect to. In fact, looking at my graph (yes, I have a graph of the sales of every Socks show on every day at Edinburgh since 2007), the second Monday, which this was, sees a spike most years and has sold out a few times. It's just surprising when it does.
Indeed this year has seen what I'm thinking of as a record number of sellouts. In fact it's not. We're equalling our best year ever, 2010, in having 7 sellouts by this stage, but the devil is in the detail. That year our capacity was 90 and this year I made the deliberate choice to go down to a 60 seater room. So it was almost inevitable we would have more sellouts as, in past years, we were selling more than 60 tickets on many nights, but still falling short of the 90 we needed to get up on the chalk board. So it's something of a return to the sellout chalkboard.
Man, I can't tell you the buzz of being one of only two acts on that chalk board of a night. Even though this means there are plenty of shows (in the 90 and 150+ seaters) who have sold more tickets than us, we get our names up in chalk. Which, when you say it out loud, does sound pretty pathetic. Shut up, I'm enjoying the moment.
My backstage storage space and changing room. This is by far the biggest such space I've ever had at my Edinburgh venues. See that table? I get to lay my clothes out on there to dry while I'm performing (if they're soaked from the rain, as they have been) and everything. And the backstage area, and the corridor leading to it, are so well soundproofed I'm able to get in earlier and take more time getting out, without disturbing the other act that's finishing their show or setting up the next. (I'm on between the lovely Harriet Dyer, who ends her show in a dinosaur costume, and Zach Zimmerman, who's as sweet as anything). When I've been in The Sportsmans room at Teviot, my Socks set has had to be squeezed every night into a narrow space between the audience seating and the bar, which regularly caused props to get lost and occasionally damaged bits of set. And as for changing room, this is luxury. Because the venue is so hot and I sweat so much, every night I come off and totally change my clothes, bringing a fresh t shirt to go home in and wearing a kilt to perform. When I was in the Sportsmans I'd have to go change in the toilets while the other act was getting in, or go home in the kilt. So this is heaven. And I know, if they use these spaces again next year, this storage space will have shrunk and the venue expanded to get more seats in. It's what I'd do if I ran the place.
It's only taken a fortnight, but there at last is our A1 poster board outside the venue. There you go, that'll bring em in.
Changing The Order.
An odd feature of this year's show is that I've been changing the running order on different nights. We actually have a proper narrative plot, of sorts, which can't be tampered with. But yet I do, slightly. This will be hard to explain but...
At the start of the run it went:
Part One: Intro, I'm A Sock, Music Hall Song, Philip Astley, Improv.
Then Grimadli, Magic Routine.
Then Nicole Kidman, Accents Song, Lady In Pants, Clown, Clown Song, Greggs Song, end of part one.
Part Two: Eurovision Song, Greatest Story Little Baby Jesus, Costumes & Clown, Trapeze, end. Sweary Poppins.
Then, on the first Tuesday, totally by accident I found I'd forgotten to do Grimaldi and Magic, so they were shifted to later in the order. Giving us:
Part One: Intro to Improv as was, then Nicole Kidman to Clown Song
Then Grimaldi & Magic Routine, then Greggs Song and end of part one.
This new order worked, but I wasn't sure. So I did the initial running order for 2 more nights, then moved permanently to the revised running order. Grimaldi and Magic work better after the Nicole & Clown songs.
Then on Monday 12th, it got shuffled again, by accident. I skipped over Grimaldi and Magic, getting ready to do them before the Greggs song. Then totally forgot them, did the Greggs song, and moved on to part two. So I then did the Eurovision song routine, all the way through it thinking "how am I going to put Grimaldi and Magic back in?". I then did Grimaldi and Magic in between Eurovision and the Greatest Story finale section, and it worked.
It was, by the way, our best and funniest night of the run so far. Leaving me with the dilemma of which order to do things in for the rest of the run? Do I bump Grimaldi and Magic that much later in the show again, or do I keep them in the middle?
It's good to have a flexible show. And, as always happens with Edinburgh runs, I feel more confident and happy with the material as we go along, even though much of the content hasn't changed. It can often be the case that presenting the same material confidently makes it funny, and the audience would have laughed all the time if you'd only stopped doubting yourself. Hah, what's the betting they sit there tonight in stoney silence and I go back to square one? It's a funny business this comedy lark.
NB: The Improv bit.
Sunday 11th - Strongman lifting up an elephant
Monday 12th - Sword swallowing contortionist on a bareback horse
Tuesday 13th - Fire breathing which became extinguishing a zippo lighter by inhaling, v successful (and another sellout, now you ask)
Wednesday 14th - Desmond Tutu bareback horse riding (they asked for someone in a tutu, hilarious misunderstanding ensued)
Thursday 15th - Juggling bears (which descended into bears killing children, which was fun)
Friday 16th - Sword swallowing
Sat 17th - Human cannonball
Sunday 18th - Sword swallowing lion tamer (video)
Monday 19th - Human cannonball lion tamer
Tuesday 20th - Juggling with chainsaws
Weds 21st - ?
Thurs 22nd - Plate spinning
Friday 23rd - Human cannonball lion tamer (again)
Sat 22nd - Wall Of Death (most original suggestion of the month)
Sunday 25th - Human cannonball and unicyclist
Until August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. On sale now!
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