I took 3 different one-man shows to the Edinburgh Fringe between 2007 and 2011. Apart from the murder, this play came vividly out of those experiences. It could be a full cast radio or stage/TV play about the Fringe or a Fringe show itself using anything from a small cast to a single performer presenting it as a dramatic narrative. I have tried to leave all these options open in the way it's scripted.
A lighting man conscientiously flyers the Royal Mile on behalf of a performer.
Typically, most of the flyering is done by the performers themselves.
Characters in the play
Gordon Bennet, a Fringe performer
His money-conscious Wife
Voldemort (Dr Evil ) a promoter
Stan on the Sound!
Cassandra
Americans (2)
Australians (2)
Alternative Promoter
Hostile Reviewers (2)
Fair Reviewers (2)
A Chorus of Street Voices
Lance, lighting man
Various Stand Ups, Hostile Locals (2), Cops (2), Friendly Local Waitress , Internet Cafe Russian Girl, Local Barmaid, Alkies, Big Issue Seller, Flyermen/women, Box office girl, Indian Newsagent, Scottish poet, Audience members, and other performers (in ‘The Dark Side ’ and ‘Aladdin Tights’) to be played by members of the cast. The prices quoted need inflating from 2012 levels.
Dedicated to ‘Cassandra’ who unsuccessfully warned me about all this. I hope she laughs.
The Edinburgh Fringe ten years ago. Classical vistas of buildings on the hillside opposite the Royal Mile. A steepling Castle containing a very different narrative of the British Isles from the English one. We navigate this gloomy Athens of the North cradled in the foothills of Arthur’s Seat – a Scottish Enlightenment glowering atop an extinct volcano - along a street of elegant rain-blackened granite converted to unlikely venues…
Voice off The Stan on the Sound Show!! “Belligerent, nasty and pointless” * Three Weeks “Three cheers for Stan!”***** Stan’s Guitarist
Enter Stan, a rat-faced runt in a SATAN T shirt, techy jeans showing his ass crack and any really offensive British regional accent. Roll up in the side of his mouth, nipped until he has a chance to go out and smoke it during your show. He hammers a coffin nail into a fly, throws the hammer down violently across the stage into its clanging metal box and hangs a sign; THE STAN ON THE SOUND SHOW.
Stan Welcome to the Stan on the Sound show. (to the audience as to a performer) Don’t touch the equipment. If the microphone’s too low, put your hand up and I’ll fix it. Eventually. If it’s then too high, so you have to do the whole show on tip toe with your head tilted back, ruining all your best notes, (applying gaffer tape noisily across some cables) tough. Oi! Stop trying out yer voice. Health and safety first, lovey. And if that’s your props outside on the way to the fire exit, expect the fire brigade to smash right through them (looking at the audience like he’s doing it to them) - on their way in if we get a practice. What? No, I won’t be miking up your drums. (glancing at a fleet of microphones) Do you think I’m made of microphones? It’ll ruin the balance I’ve struck with our session guitarist’s intro. I’ll just turn the volume on your voice microphone right down. What? Speak up! Your show’s mainly talking so that means you’ll have to wreck your throat just to almost be heard every show for the entire run, just to hear three bars of a session guitar? And you’ve already got an Edinburgh summer cold. Well, I can’t be fiddling with my mixer every five minutes. I’ve got four shows before and after yours and a fag to finish. You’re not worth listening to anyway. I’ve worked with some of the third best in the business on all the periphery stages, pal - and you’re not them. That ARTIST tag round your neck is missing the PISS. (aside, as someone else comes offstage, glowing with relief and triumph after 18 months love labour.) - Only one thing wrong with your 40 minute show, love. It’s 40 minutes too long. (addressing audience again) Oh you need to do a sound check now and you’re nervous and you’re paying me and everybody else in Edinburgh through the nose and your show starts in two minutes? You’ve spent two years writing and rehearsing your life’s work and a fortune staging it up here and the last twenty minutes doing yoga in the foyer trying to centre yourself for this once in a life chance and now you’re so stressed you can’t remember your first line? This is Edinburgh. If you want lovey dovey, try the Glasgow Empire. Besides, they’re not here to watch you.
(with full band accompaniment and perfect sound)
I’m Stan on the Sound, I’m Stan on the Sound,
For a Standing Ovation and Thanks All Around,
Let’s hear it for me as I finger my amp,
I’m touchy and prickly; you’re feely and camp!
Voice off Meanwhile at a better venue where a sound man actually mans the sound and a Greek woman trumpets a prophesy.
Cassandra And the Bad News is… Fascism is on the rise again in Eastern Europe. And North America. And Western Europe. And South America. And the gangs that aren’t running Russia -the drug gangs and pimps Putin’s Mafia State drove out of the old Eastern bloc - and the EU allowed in - will turn the anti-freedom of movement movement’s unholy alliance of white toffs and white toughs against the EU. Modern Britain will stop wondering ‘what is Britain’ in a decent inclusive Gordon Brown Scottish-global sort of way and decide that it’s the Isle of Wight. Ukraine will follow Latvia, Lithuania and Poland into the EU and NATO and Putin will declare war on both by annexing Ukraine. Britain will leave the EU after a suicidal referendum. EU-voting Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave Britain. There will be droughts, hurricanes, locusts and plagues. The ice caps will melt. Extinction Rebellion will be arrested with Fake News, Fake Science and climate change denial. The Earth will be privatised and Private Profit will Trump Public Good everywhere. If shareholders lose money if less sewage is pumped into streams, or less plastic bags into the sea , then more sewage and plastic will be pumped. If shareholders lose money spent on plugging leaks or planning new reservoirs, then bring on Noah’s Flood and the Devil’s Drought. If art can’t be staged without making the promoter a fortune, then-
Voldemort I thought your show was supposed to be entertainment? You’re driving people away from my venues with this feel-bad brand. Where’s the humour? Where’s the songs you promised in your pitch?
Cassandra (a comic song, pointing at the promoter)
O shame upon the Earth. Apollo! Apollo!
Would I could sing like the sweet nightingale
Of a hawk who eats art on his daughter-altar
But whose bad nest-eggs will all tumble tomorrow.
Voldemort Right, that’s it. There’s the door. Get out.
Cassandra Do I get a refund?
Voldemort No.
Cassandra Asshole. (exits festival)
A pavement show. The Busker
Busker The actress is flying. (as the actress) I’m flying! My Method has worked to perfection. I’ve murdered the director; annihilated the writer; slayed the PR, upstaged the title role and stolen every scene. I have the photographer in thrall, shooting me from all angles. As for the audience, it’s not about you, mate. This is MY tragedy – (as himself) ie a Mein Kampf farce viewed from a long way up her own ass - (as actress) directed by and starring ME, everywhere and every day from the moment I wake up to the moment I can’t sleep.
Punter What’s it all about?
Busker Her! She murdered Jessica the director by spooking her trust exercises and cold shouldering her warms ups. (as the actress) I sabotaged every rehearsal I wasn’t centre stage of, blaming this on ‘stomach cramps’ for which every sympathy was extended until they mysteriously recurred at every point, a condition known as Diva’s Disease, which, I explained, any prop or move I didn’t control would provoke, and whose debilitating symptom is an inability to manipulate situations to my own advantage.
I annihilated the writer by turning my lack of dash and pace in the face of the Royal Mile into a constant querying of his hyphens and dots, demolishing centuries-established conventions of communication between stage and page until he exited, page left. He was last heard of in AndalucÃa in poetic fragments no longer able to express himself in any other literary form except limericks. - Though there are rumours he is coming to tonight’s premiére. It’s not about the writing or the directing. It’s not about the audience accessing what the writer and director want to communicate. It’s about ME feeling every word and move physically and emotionally as an authentic self-actualising yogic experience. Sometimes it’s taking a step forward on the word ‘step’ or pointing to my head on the word ‘think’ just in case that wasn’t already obvious to everyone or even moving beyond sense altogether by skipping backwards and then forwards on the two syllables of on the word ‘orange’. Not that you can hear the word anyway in that self-whisper into my inner ear.
She usurped the PR for the show by placing herself centre stage of every shoot with her arms out in an embrace of the entire company, in costume, full make up and role at the centre of the universe. (as the actress) And by seducing the photographer in a relationship which certainly included living together on his professional earnings but whose public expression includes a 24/7 photoshoot of ME in stunning Edinburgh locations, petting his expanding lens. I control the written PR with an entitled affected indifference even when given star billing and a sarcastic sullen fury when anyone else is mentioned.
She couldn’t sing the genius composer’s exquisite lute tune the way he wrote it so claimed a co-credit on her clunky rewrite, with her name first even though it’s alphabetically second because ‘the rewrite was my idea’. He goes along with it because it gets him out of his garret.
Actress (warming up, with balletic moves on each syallble) Me me me me me me me me me…
Her co-performers stand uncertainly, upstaged left and right. They join in sullenly as she roars the heart-lifting ensemble tune LOOK AT ME! I’M FLYING!!!
Busker She churns the applause into her face like greasepaint. Is still there three minutes later, flying encore high above the applause, unaware no-one else is left onstage. For her, they never were. So every single member of the company is behind the curtain with time, motive and opportunity, when a caber swings out on an industrial chain and thunders – whack – through the back of the crack in her head and out through the front of that ecstatic grin.
NEWSPAPER HEALTH AND SAFETY TRAGEDY – POLICE NOT RULING OUT MURDER
THE SHOW MUST GO ON, SAYS FRINGE OFFICE.
(NOT THAT SHOW, OBVIOUSLY. THAT ONE WAS UNDER POLICE INVESTIGATION, AT LEAST UNTIL SOMEONE WAS UNDER ARREST. BUT THE WHOLE FRINGE FESTIVAL THING.
“IT WAS WHAT SHE WOULD HAVE WANTED….”)
Busker Nothing changed. I still cordially wished every act in town except mine would horribly break its leg. And stepping up to this ego-kerbing scaffold for my premiére, the will to perform remained as strong in me as the will to live. Though not for much longer.
Scene 1. Bagpipes and flyering sound-collage
Gordon (selling hard, proffering flyer) Alternative poetry –based multi-arts one man Celtic history, Sir? Arthur’s legend done as an Invasion Games sports broadcast. It’s a fantasy. Britain wins. Yeah. Alternative Celtic history about Boudicca the Mother of Britain with battle poetry, movement and drum, Madam? Alternative Celtic history, Sir-
Local (pre-empting the flyer) Don’t even think about it.
Bagpipes and uber-competitive flyering and showcase sound-collage. Snatches of brilliant stand up comedy, virtuoso ensemble Greek theatre, world class violin and five part harmony singing. Lone voice straining to be heard against all this-
Gordon Alternative one man stand up Celtic history, Sir ? With songs and a drum. And comedy. Half price. 45 minute show. Arthur’s legend done as an Invasion Games sports broadcast. Britain wins; yeah, really, it’s a fantasy. Alternative Celtic history, Madam? Boudicca’s revolt done as a punk rock tour. A show that seriously asks What Is Britain but in a funny way. Alternative Celtic history, Sir-
American No thank you.
Gordon (changing tack) Free King Arthur show this evening when you buy a half price ticket for the partner show, a punk rock comedy musical about Boudicca, eight pm tomorrow evening.
Mobile rings
Wife (on phone) How’s it going?
Gordon Er... You know, highs and lows.
Wife (on phone) The bank’s been in touch.
Gordon (fake cheerful) Yeah?
Wife They’re wondering if it’s a mistake. I’m hoping it’s a mistake. Our statement shows that you’ve registered for the Fringe twice?
Gordon They’re counting Part 1 and Part 2 as two shows.
Wife I thought Voldemort said you could register them as one show?
Gordon He did, smooth as silk. Part One Britain’s Dreaming: Boudicca. Part Two. Britain’s Making; Arthur. One country, one process, one show. But Voldemort’s a promoter. He says a lot of things when he’s taking your money and something very different when the Fringe Office are taking your money.
Wife Our money. So it’s two shows.
Gordon Three hundred and ninety three quid each.
Wife Two registration fees. Seven hundred and eighty six quid, OK. Then there’s another venue hire bill for six hundred and forty eight pounds plus VAT. That’s the third time you’ve paid that. The first time it was four hundred and thirty two pounds plus VAT. The second time it was one thousand and eighty pounds plus VAT. And now there’s another charge as well, plus VAT, sent by bank transfer. The bank’s wondering if it’s fraud. I’m hoping that it’s fraud.
Gordon It’s in three instalments. And I was late with the last one, so Voldemort was threatening a default charge on the special fee he gave me for booking a prime time slot for the entire three weeks. Plus VAT. But he let me off, so we saved that-
Wife How noble of him. Eighteen hundred pounds plus VAT. He’s sucking the life out of us. Is that why you all call him Voldemort?
Gordon That and the snakeskin Nehru-Mao Tse Tung suit, money box hat and money-hoovering nose. Surely no-one dresses like that after six years of Harry Potter without at least partly knowing they’re doing it! I had a coffee in the JK Rowling cafe today. She was too poor to heat her room so she wrote her Hollywood blockbuster there. (desperate fantasy) Maybe it’s a sign!
Wife Yes, of two thousand six hundred pounds plus VAT we’ve got to recoup on the show alone before you even start. After a year rehearsing the paint off our bedroom ceiling. How are ticket sales?
American (off) No thank you!
Gordon ...Steady.
Wife Then there’s accommodation. The fraud people have asked me to check whether you really are living in a luxury hotel for four weeks?
Gordon It’s a postgrad. flat administered by a luxury hotel. Most Edinburgh University postgrads take to the hills when they see this Fringe lot coming so the hotel steps in and lets out their rooms. All except two on our corridor who are stuck here for the summer. A young Indian doctor working 20 hour shifts at the hospital who says hello when I see him coming in as I go out in the morning who really ought to see a doctor himself before he needs a NHS pathologist.
Wife He’d better book now if he wants to get a pathologist on the NHS before he’s too late.
Gordon You should be up here doing Stand Up, love. I see his wife and two little kids when I come in to start my warms ups with knock back my reviews and we exchange a wan smile and look that says ‘life is a tough gig isn’t it’ as she negotiates the lift with a baby in a buggy in one hand and a toddler who wants to be carried in the other. And the other room taken for the summer is Dave From Southampton who is up here studying – who has illegally sublet his second bed to Pete From Dagenham who leaves his motorbike in the corridor but complains when the Indians leave their buggies and prams outside their own flat plus either Dave or Pete – Dave I think - plays an electric guitar at full volume at various thoughtful times of the day and night so that no one, esepcially the kids, can get to sleep and when asked to turn the stereo volume down by the sleep-deprived doctor jeers ‘it’s not a stereo, it’s my electric guitar’ and when Dr Ravi then asks over his sleep-deprived increasingly incomprehensible medical tomes ‘please turn your personal volume down’ thinks it’s amusing merely to respond to this by sending up his Indian accent in a craven voice and either Dave or Pete – Dave I think - puts up nasty notes in the communal loo about ‘certain people who don’t understand English culture or how guests should behave in a foreign country’ are leaving ‘smears on the bowl; clean up after you’ when the real problem – apart from the fact that Dave and Pete don’t know how to behave as guests here in a foreign country because they don’t even recognise that they’re in one, Scotland - is that the flush is broken. Luxury Lets keep telling us that someone will be along to fix it but as I’ve already paid the rent through Voldemort no-one seems in that much of a hurry to do so. Still, as Voldemort points out, I’ve got Lance with me on an illegal sublet too and Luxury Lets are giving me a budget price…
Wife Four hundred pounds a week plus £10 a day for the car? Fourteen hundred and ninety pounds.
Gordon Lance is paying me half of that for his room. And before you ask about the cuisine, I know I said I’d cook but the supermarket queues are like Noah’s ark embarking in the rain – and after ten hours stagefright waiting to go on, all day flyering and then a horror show I’m so exhausted and hyped up , me and Lance just need to go out and kick back -
Wife And blow thirty quid a night in the process?
Gordon (sheepish) I’m not eating and drinking much at lunch. Too nervous. I walk around all afternoon, listening to England batting against India on TMS in my headset, trying to get that endless summer afternoon happy at home sort of vibe with the crowd purring, Aggers talking and my heart singing like a summer lark. It only sings when we’re winning and even then I’m only ever a false shot or a dropped catch away from misery. What heaven it would be just to walk round listening to England piling on the centuries without my evening show hovering over me like a rain stopped play. So yeah I had four pints one afternoon to see if it would make me any less nervous. It didn’t.
Wife (making a calculation) Twenty nine thirties. Eight hundred and seventy pounds. On top of the two thousand six hundred pounds and the fourteen hundred and ninety pounds. 4690 plus 870. Five thousand eight hundred and thirty pounds. Call it six grand after the VAT and extras. And what are you paying Lance for doing the lighting?
Gordon A share in the profits.
Wife But there aren’t any.
Gordon Exactly. I’m understudying Voldemort as a vampire capitalist. Illegally sub-letting space I don’t own and stealing labour on a share of no-profits. Ghost rent and slave wages. But I’ve got a reviewer-
Wife What’s the point?
Gordon I’ve got a reviewer in tonight.
With a multiple echo
Gordon and every other performer All I need is one five star review and we could really take off-
Wife Has the line gone funny or are you saying that in stereo?
Gordon Not that’s just everyone up here saying it with me.
Scene 3. Voice only.
Hostile reviewer (sneering) ...Maybe I missed something at this performance, but it comes across as a failed attempt to combine David Starkey and Gary Lineker with a pathological love for masks – I’ve always hated masks because my mother had a room full of them when I was a kid and they terrified me, staring at me, menacing me … And then just when I thought at least it was over twenty minutes early, he starts to sing! The positive is he’s passionate about the subject. The negative is he’s the only one. Probably best his passions are kept closeted for now. Or forever, in fact. One star.
Gordon (the end of the world, a brutal reality check that somehow doesn’t feel real) One star!
Scene 4. Street sounds returning . And in a shocked, paranoid – echoing, distorted, hollow - Chorus of street sounds that pertains to him alone,
Voice 1 There he is now! The Norfolk recluse. He’s got a five star slot and a one star view. He’s hopeless.
Voice 2 He’s the dunce of the festival.
Voice 3 They’re not laughing with him. They’re laughing at him!
Voice 1 His venue want him out.
Voice 4 The Royal Mile is heckling him.
Voice 5 The Nicholson Street alkies don’t even bother tearing his posters down.
Voice 6 He embarrasses his fellow performers, the box office girls despise him.
Voice 7 The Fringe office are banning him, for his own protection.
Voice 8 He’s letting his old school down. He’s letting the whole Festival down. He’s letting his pants down.
Voice 9 He’s today’s story in all the papers – and it’s a horror story.
Voice 10 He’ll never perform in this town again. He’ll never perform anywhere...
Scene 5. The sounds of a text being sent.
Gordon (with a heavy cold now) Well at least I know.
A mobile rings. He answers it.
Wife (broken up) Signal...can’t hear...
Gordon What?
Wife Sorry, I’m... cafe in brighton n... signal’s
Gordon It was a very expensive self indulgence. You’re right. I’m coming home. I’ve had enough.
Wife Sorry about that, I can hear you now.
Gordon Where are you?
Wife In a cafe in Brighton -the signal’s not very good. I’ll go outside.... I’ve read that review.
Gordon He was so nice on the night. I thought he loved it. But no-one else was in to say otherwise so he could say what he liked.
Wife I’m furious. He’s got a mask phobia so they send him to a mask show and even he wonders if he’s missed something. He’s justifying his response like he’s been told what to write what he doesn’t think.
Gordon That’s kind of you, love… But-
Wife There’s some agenda here we don’t know about.
Gordon But that doesn’t help me. I’ll never sell any tickets now. I perform for 45 minutes, take to my bed, get hours of stage fright until the next slaughter, then do it all again. What’s the point? I’ve got flu – it hasn’t stopped bloody raining all week. It’s cold. It’s supposed to be August. Everyone eats deep fried bars and fish suppers just to survive. I’m either flyering in the rain or frying under the lights. No-one gets the gags. I get a one woman audience and she only stays because she’s sorry for me. I get a two man front row – backed by an empty room- and it glares. If I make a joke it upsets the one person in the world who takes it personally, the one person who chooses to come in. The auditorium feels like the black hole in our bank account. I’m jacking it in.
Voldemort (in his head) You know it makes sensssssse.
Wife Oh no you don’t. You’re not going to let one bad review and a heart-sucking promoter and bit of adversity beat you, after all this work? What if Boudicca and King Arthur had done that?
Gordon (amazed) What – you think I should stay?
Wife I’m coming up to join you in two weeks. You stick to your guns.
Gordon Sticks pretending to be swords, like a silly kid.
Wife Guns.
Gordon Even though the shows are going to play to empty houses every night from now on?
Wife (sighs) Is no-one booked in at all?
Gordon Twelve
Wife Brilliant!
Gordon Twelve spread over two weeks. The average Fringe house is two. There’s five other shows in my own venue at the same time let alone the ten other venues on that street and the hundred such streets. Over 350 venues in all from here to Leith. And the competition, the talent, is awesome. All of it funnier, lighter, more visual and not half so demanding to perform as my best stuff.
Wife Well you can’t let those two down. It’s one review. Get back on your high horse
Geirge Wheelchair. I’ve got Boudicca in a wheelchair. The chariot that empowers but also restricts. And Arthur. The throne that empowers but restricts. A chess king.
Wife Gert back on your wheelchair-horse and start flogging it.
Gordon Even if it’s a dead one? The same mag is in to review the other show on Wednesday.
Wife What the mag called?
Gordon Broadway Baby.
Wife Never heard of it. And you can’t get that unlucky with a reviewer again.
Scene 6. Voice only
Hostile reviewer 2 Boudicca: Britain’s Dreaming is a noble concept but I’m afraid it just isn’t realised. It feels like Gordon Barnes is aiming to be John Cooper Clark but coming off like an earnest, ‘hip’ history teacher, ten years after he lost touch with ‘the kids’. For a story of the battle against the establishment, it’s too conventional. For a history lesson, it’s too confusing. For poetry, it just doesn’t sing. Two stars.
Gordon (again, a reality check that doesn’t feel real) But the poetry does sing! I’ll take the other stuff on the chin as a valid opinion I differ with but even if nothing else works, I know the poetry sings!
Scene 7. Streets of people hurrying to other shows, or being invited to them. Gordon soldiers on through them
Punter Wow! Great mask.
Gordon (dubiously) Thanks. You should see the reviews it’s got.
Voledmort You still at it?
Gordon You bet. I’ve got an audience of two waiting. Reviews of my stage death have been greatly exaggerated. Why? Do you want to re-hire my space?
Pause
Voldemort What?
Gordon Only I noticed you cosying up to both my reviewers over a Starbucks carry out at your Cabaret venue last week. In between your helping the Borders and Lothian police with their enquiries. Did you have something to do with that real murder or do you just murder people’s shows and run off with their money?
Voldemort (forcing a chuckle) That’s paranoid, man.
Gordon Even paranoids have real enemies.
Voldemort I only want the best shows otherwise it reflects badly on my venues. I don’t do mediocrity, mate. Or old man rants. Either use that drum to drum up some sales for your exercise in self-publicity or get out.
Gordon It’s a bodhran. And if I’m here as an exercise is self-publicity, mediocre or not, I’m hardly alone. And since when was it cool to be ageist in a review? Or for you to quote him against me? That’s like me saying he’s a heartless little boy. Which he is by the way. Or calling you Dr Evil because you dress like Dr Evil.
Voledemort I’m not Dr Evil. I’m a promoter.
Gordon Well start promoting me then instead of hoovering up my money like ... (under breath) Voldemort.
Pause.
Voldermort You don’t want to make an enemy of me, mate. There are a lot worse promoters on the Fringe than me.
Gordon (narrating) Which was true. Vladamir, for instance, who went into liquidation and took everybody’s venue hire money there with him. His scam was: book an Apostolic church that forbids sacrilege and make sure everyone sanitises their shows except the one about bestiality, -the only one with somewhere else to go when the venue withdrew, shocked, swiftly followed by Vladamir with the cash. Meanwhile the church staged a horn-again Christian jazz group:
When you’re given the gift
of a wilderness word
you don’t want to be famous,
you just want to be heard
which provided existential reaffirmation to any performer who dropped in after a whole week without an audience. I on the other hand went down in a red sea of debt, after months of advance planning, with one week to go.
But lo! a fairy godmother appeared from the Brighton Fringe – Underpantomime Holdings - whose hosting and PR services amounted to an instruction to buy a magic marker and an A5 board and leave me to it – on their way upstairs to the panto their hard noses were really in. One thing you can certainly say about the comedy at the largest arts festival in the world is that all the jokes are at the performer’s expense. Half an hour before the first show, I was told I needed liability insurance – another invisible ‘extra’– and had to dash down the hill to Princes Street to fax off yet another fortune while I should have been in the green room – ie the street - getting nervous. A hill as steep as a fringe festival outlay. That was my pre-show warm up and breathing exercises that day. I was still busting a gut half way up when my audience was being admitted!
Gordon (external) Oh yeah, compared with Vladamir and Brighton Underpantomime, you’re -
Voldemort I don’t book celebrities. I keep it real. I put up all the posters that the rain and the alkies have ripped down again myself.
Gordon Apart from mine and Cassandra’s in Space 12. And you certainly have your hands on the till.
Voledmort I have a living to make, mate. I’m a pro-
Gordon I’m the pro. The only difference between me and a prossie being I have to pay you to get fucked.
Voldemort That’s it. My production team have had my Evil eye on you since you let me down on that two am cabaret. Unless things change by the end of the week, you’re out.
Gordon I didn’t let you down. Your team wouldn’t let me in.
Voldemort You had to wait your turn.
Gordon In the pissing rain for half an hour. After giving my all to a tiny audience you did nothing to help me recruit. Again.
Voldemort It’s a select venue. Space is limited.
Gordon EXCEPT for the pretty volunteers who woman your counters and schmooze your VIPs-
Voldemort It’s not personal, mate. It’s show business. And I don’t have time for this now. I’ve got ten more venues every year. Of course, if you were thinking of giving it up now...
Gordon Over my dead body, ‘mate’...
Scene 8. Breakfast cafe sounds, street sounds outside
American Fried bread. That’s bread that’s been fried, right?
Gordon Can I put some flyers on this table?
Waitress Aye.
Door opens as Posh enters. Immediate implosion of street sounds. Amid this.
Alkie What ye lookin at ye posh butch!
Posh I’m just trying to find somewhere that sells hummus! (going)
Waitress The deli’s next door.
Alkie Ye’ll get deli belly!
Gordon (pursuing Posh outside) Wait. If you like hummus, here’s a flyer for my King Arthur show, which is a kind of Greek traged- Oh.
A physical theatre/ Greek tragedy extract crosses the street, the physical bodies of the actors in tattered toga-like tunics stained with sand and mud enacting a sandstorm as Agamemnon waits to disembark. Out of this emerges a runner, a messenger, conveyed by her movement on one spot. Out of the becalmed sand emerges Iphigeneia and her sacrifice to the gods for a fair wind to Troy. Gordon is gobsmacked.
Greek Chorus (Lancashire accent) her supplications and cries of ‘father’
were nothing, nor the child’s lamentation-
to kings passioned for battle
Gordon (to the company’s director) I love the choice of Lancashire accents to convey the earthiness and elemental grandeur. I think this is the most professional Greek theatre I’ve ever seen.
Director (amused) They’re amateurs. My theatre studies group, Lancashire Sixth Form College. (hands a flyer) But come and review us. Our last reviewer fell asleep after twenty minutes. Called us the third best Greek tragedy at the festival. But then, the best play ever written only got second place on its premiere.
Gordon Oedipus the Dictator (narrating). I saw the other two Greek tragedies as well. Oedipus the original detective-dunnit. And Medea the original Fatal Attraction. I mentally pictured Voldemort as Jason and Cassandra in the furious title role. Nothing to touch those three productions at the whole festival. It opened my eyes to the gold standard the Ancient Greeks set we pathetic look-at-me performers. And that Oedipus-blind sleeper gave the sixth form Aeschylus two stars! Well, there are so many shows at the Fringe you’d never see all of them if you had a decade instead of three weeks to do it in - and those rough diamond sixth formers were the only Fringe show I ever saw twice.
Flyergirl (giving flyer to Gordon) New comedy, everything written on the spot every day!
Gordon Is that supposed to be a recommendation? Have you any idea how long my stuff took to put together? I’ve been rehearsing it for eighteen months. I’ve been writing it for eighteen years!
Flyergirl The Fringe is a rag week. Not some professor having a bit of fun in his end of term lecture. Maybe that’s your problem?
A damascene moment. Marked by a comic epiphany of bagpipes
Gordon That’s it! I need to lighten up, wake up to Chris Evans instead of Radio 4; watch some Stand Up. Check out a couple of pantomimes. (meeting two coppers at a gate) Can I go down there?
Bad Cop (vicious) Naw.
Good Cop (marginally less belligerent) What you can do (like an insult) Sur (pause) is….
Gordon (narrating) I started seeing a few shows. Everyone seemed to be having it easier than me. The Virgin Mary on the Free Fringe got titters at the expense of the big name venue that didn’t book her and thick-skinned a late arrival who walked out when she schoolmarm-rebuked him. (Irish, carefree) Oh no, and now there’s an atmosphere…. A thicker skin than he had anyway. But she got her biggest laugh just from reading out Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. No singing, no dancing, no learning, no gymnastics, just one line:
Contrary Mary Let’s hear how Dan Brown incorporates his research into the plot...
Gordon And then just reading out four pages of how he didn’t. I cried with laughter and she laughed all the way to the bank – a plastic bucket of free flowing non-obligatory fivers as we left. Maybe I should do that instead of a ninety quid a day box office charging people as they ... don’t ...come in. Now I was tuning in. I saw a whole week of obscure Scottish Arts poets and writers touring in twos in a bar introducing each other as the only other genius in Scotland and then mumbling from a book for fifteen minutes to their arts liaison officer, the barmaids, an American rave reviewer the size of a Scottish mountain and me while I brooded about another hour of gut-busting by heart later – for a smaller audience and a very much bigger critical hammering. It wasn’t fair. A Stand Up told me his ad libs got a lot more laughs than his prepared satirical show so he just jotted them down and read them out instead. He called it Why Is There Never Enough Scheidt On Radio Three? It brought the house down. Why? OK the name of the German composer Scheidt does sound funny in a BBC accent but it’s pretty low grade stuff. Isn’t it?
Scene 9. Bar voices and sounds. Cabaret atmosphere.
Stand Up (BBC accent) Why is there never enough Scheidt on Radio 3?
Uproarious laughter
Stand Up (Welsh) I wish to apply for the vacant post of violin tutor at your school. I can think of nothing better than fiddling with the little boys of Mountain High!
Politically incorrect laughter
Gordon (to a neighbour) Ooo. That’s not educational satire as per the flyer. Is it?
Punter Cheer up, you miserable sod.
Stand Up Some poems about teaching now. They took ages to write and they all are in a carefully constructed mediaeval Welsh verse called cynghanaedd. I’ve suffered for my art.
Punter Now it’s our turn.
Laughter
Stand Up Or I could read you some actual sentence completion answers done by pupils at my local school instead? Hands up who would rather have those? Everyone’s hand up. OK. And how many want the fiendishly constructed medieval poems you won’t really understand? Nobody. Good.
Gordon Was he looking at me when he said that!
Stand Up I’ll just call the Lord of the Rings register first. Is Boromir?
Laughter
Stand Up Actual Sentence Completion test answers at Bogstandard Comprehensive.
Laughter
Stand Up Bogstandard Comprehensive has improved its position in the league tables for the 30th year running by hitting all its:
(a) pupils
(b) teachers
(c) targets
(d) parents
(e) rivals
Less certain laughter
Gordon Now that is satire.
Neighbour That’s why they’re not laughing so much.
Titters fading. Street and flyering sounds fade back in as Gordon emerges.
Gordon (narrating, wonderingly) Maybe the reason I wasn’t getting audiences in my cramped uncomfortable studio theatre for my carefully scripted, totally rehearsed, politically correct shows was because I didn’t leave any room for them either. I loved the way Stand Ups made shows out of thin air. Just stood there, looked the audience in the eye, and risked it...
Scene 10. Another Cabaret. Bar sounds and tipsy laughter
Stand Up 2 I did the Rankin tour yesterday. We started in the tour guide’s local; he let us watch him count the money down to the last sixpence as he downed two pints and then insult anyone who admitted they hadn’t read the books
Rankin Guide (thick Edinburgh accent) Ye illiterate bastarrrds probably think Homer is a cartoon character, din ye?
Stand Up Called me a
Rankin guide Cockney smarrrtarrse
Stand Up 3 when I knew - from the Rankin books - that the building we started at was a morgue. I’m from Bristol - and when I asked if I could pay him at the cash machine at the end, he even reported my sudden death in a heritage alley to Inspector Rebus free of charge.
Laughter segueing into another venue
Stand Up 4 (Glasgow accent) My wife said holloo to Simon Amstall on a sofa in the soft Udderbelly yesterday night. She recognised him from our front room…
Expectant pause
Stand Up 4 On the telly.
Gales of laughter.
Stand Up 5 Where would we be without comedy? (pause) Germany.
Laughter
Gordon (politically correct) Ooo!
Stand Up 5 Racists!
Laughter
Gordon ...Maybe I was trying too hard. I said as much to Pete Postlethwaite on the way out. He gave me a funny look.
Pete P I’m not here, mate. I’m dead.
Scene 11. Fading back into the flyering and busking streets Gordon is pacing. Over this.
Gordon (narrating) I waded out into the tsunami of the Royal Kilometere into the usual rainstorm of flyers. In a normal street, half of them would have been arrested for indecent exposure or obscene language. Here, about half the heavy policing was part of the street theatre. But the other half wasn’t and for a moment I was back in my non-Fringe role of spectator of life. There was a serious arrest going on. (to the busker) What’s happening?
Busker There’s been a bit of a drama at Venue 13.
Gordon The one where that actress had her head cabered?
Busker The ‘Murder Cabaret’, yeah. Apparently the cops have been on the trial of some cryptic limericks alleging that the guilty caber had worked loose of its fixings five minutes before it was supposed to. It was supposed to introduce the next show, Cabering The Tosser, Instead, it took out the star of Fringe Benefits as she took her curtain call. If it was accidental, Stan on the Sound is in deep shit for deserting his post. As is Dr Evil for employing such an unprofessional. In fact, there’s even rumours that Dr Evil was in on it because he wanted a controlled accident to scare that company into leaving early so he could re-rent the space.
Gordon He’s vicious enough. Greed is God made flesh… But weren’t they making him a lot of money?
Busker Don’t believe all that PR they’re putting out. Once it turned into a one woman show, she tended to outnumber the audience. Well she got what she wanted – everyone’s watching now. Market forces love a death.
Gordon They’ll make you a suspect if you’re not careful.
Busker No motive, pal. (gleefully) Unlike Voldermort. Radix malorum est cupitas.
Gordon (with answering glee) Well, it couldn’t happen to a nicer promoter.
Busker Ha! (exit, flyering)
Gordon I must say, though I didn’t to the busker, that cupidity, is not the root of all evil. On that basis, greed for money, I’m up here murdering myself. You never know exactly what motive murderers have – some even do for someone else or cause they believe in - some don’t even know why. They think their behaviour is perfectly rational and deeply self-expressive but the real motive is unconscious and self-annihilating. They don’t know what they’re doing, as someone once said. I can’t see me ever murdering for money but give me a tunnel home from the venue on a dark night still wearing my mask from the show and I doubt I’d hold back from fatally confronting that season-wrecking 1 star reviewer with his childhood.
The Busker performs on the pavment
Busker There was once a Fringe festival murderer
So deep under cover as he did for her
His motives were masked
What they were no-one asked;
If she shouted his name no-one heard her.
Gordon Meanwhile back in my own show, some pavement angels in Anne Summers nurses kits came at me with SAVE THE NHS flyers. Followed by a consultant in scrubs.
Surgeon Come and see our presentation.
Gordon You’re a surgeon, right? So what time’s the show?
Surgeon Six pm.
Gordon And then how long do I have to wait to see you? (long pause) It’s a joke – waiting lists...
Surgeon We’re not comedians. This is a serious protest . D’ye wannae flyer or not?
Gordon Not. (narrating again) Eight screeching teenagers in identical bowler hats come at me
Teenager (screech) The end of the world is coming! You’ve just got time to catch ‘Apocalypse In 30 minutes’ before it does!
Gordon You look remarkably cheerful about the end of the world!
Teenager (more real) If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry.
Gordon Ha ha. (narrating) I was as scared as they were. Only not about the end of the world. It was only seven and a half hours to my next curtain up. The afterglow of an Edinburgh curtain call – while as warm as the forgotten August sun – only lasts a couple of hours before the dread of curtain up started biting again. And I was going to die – again. I said as much to Pete Postlethwaite on the way out. He gave me a funny look.
Pete P I’m not here, mate. I’m dead.
Gordon Now a pantomime ‘Islamic Jihad’ sideways beardo ambushes me from the gutter, puts a finger to his lips,
Islamic terrorist Shh.
Stand Up hands me his show details and then mountain ropes up the pavement. I add his handbill to the rainforest in my man bag.
Scene 12. Away from the Royal Mile, the street sounds become less dominated by street performers and flyering –: these are large, routine crowds hurrying to shows, cashpoints, cafes and supermarkets
Gordon (narrating) I trudged back to my postgrad flat in the rain and accused myself. Performing was what I’d always wanted to do. I was on the edge, showcased and taking my life in my hands again after decades of being told what to do by a dumbed down Government for a salary and grumbling about it. There were a lot worse off than me. Teachers and doctors in careers that were getting harder every day and teenagers facing Armageddon at the age I was singing Imagine. And the Big Issue Seller in the street near my flat.
Big Issue seller (Scots) Don’t miss your chance to say No to the Big Issue.
Gordon (laughs, amused) That’s worth a sale. (buys it)
Big Issue Seller Thanks, pal.
Gordon Must be hard with all this lot going on.
Big Issue Seller Och, like trying to sell pork scratchings in a synagogue.
Gordon (uncomfortably) Ha!
Big Issue Seller Racist!
They laugh together
Gordon (comfortably) I know how you feel. (acknowledging the tactlessness of this) Well sort of.
Big Issue Seller Ye’ve restored me faith. Ye have a show up here?
Gordon Two. Britain’s Dreaming about Boudicca and Britain’s Making about King Arthur.
Big Issue Any chance of a free ticket for the Arthur?
Gordon You really want to see it?
Big Issue Your sales technique needs work, pal.
Gordon Here you go. I’ve got the Scotsman coming in tonight.
Big Issue Well you have two Scotsmen now.
Gordon Cheers! Have some semi-waterproof flyers. They’re more use to you than me.
Big Issue Get a marketing manager, son. You’re hopeless!
Scene 13. Street sounds fade. Bistro sounds fade up
Gordon (internal) I was too nervous to cook lunch. I nipped out to a bistro given five stars by the Guardian that morning. (to Waitress) A large Cote du Rhone, please.
Waitress M’sieu.
Gordon You French?
Waitress Scottish.
Gordon You look French.
Waitress We’re supposed te. It’ll be a wee while.
Gordon Guardian review made you busy?
Waitress That’s wisnae why. it’s considered French to keep people waiting. Nothing to eat with your wine?
Gordon Too nervous. I’ve got a show on later and the Scotsman are coming in.
Waitress Ye’ll be fine. See ye in about an hourr.
Chink of glasses.
Gordon (narrating) Perhaps the fourth large Cote du Rhone on that empty butterfly stomach was a mistake. But is alcohol ever the real reason what a Brit wants to do anyway? Don’t blame it on the spotlight. Don’t blame it on the boogie. Blame it on the bagpipes– an émigré in a Paris cafe full of refugees from the collective semi-conscious repressive workaday - in my case the heavily curtained Windows 2007 in a West Norfolk cottage rehearsal bedroom mirror. I had spent 2 weeks on an Edinburgh Fringe stage and I was still in my head in my Norfolk bedroom. Now, I banged my bodhran through that bedroom Window and started doing a showcase from my show. I didn’t have the nerve to perform to the entire floor at first. I started with a genuinely French couple up here for le weekend, who’d joined my table of Cote du Rhone, been charged ten times the home rate for some vin de table and were now rifling through the Fringe brochure
French woman Can you er...recommend a Fransh language show?
Gordon (external, jumping on this) My King Arthur show has a French section. (internal) Guinevere et Lancelot.
French man (pronounced the French way) Lancelot?
Gordon (performing to the lady) Bell ami, si est de nous.
French woman La francais dans le médiéval. But we are definitely coming to see zees!
Gordon (getting bolder) Ni vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous!
French woman Oh la la!
Gordon (narrating) And it kind of went on from there.
We hear Gordon declaiming Arthurian poetry with bodhran accompaniment amid a silenced cafe.
Gordon I twist them all round ma petit jolie droit
This court still revolves around – (like a kiss, at the Frenchwoman) MOI!
French woman Ni moi sans vous! Ni vous sans moi!!!
This fades under-
Gordon It was my biggest audience all fortnight, by about a hundred and six. I have never felt so close to bursting the huge void that divides the bubble from the Ocean. The me me me from the Universal Self in the vast othered City. It was Nirvana, the realest and most present I’ve ever been in my life. It was terrifying. It was wonderful.
Bodhran crescendo. Pause.
Gordon And I experienced the whole thing as if I wasn’t there. The French guy borrowed my artily unreliable Sony Mavica and took a tipsy photo - of the pillar and chairs behind me – so maybe I wasn’t. But the audience saw me. My British bodhran-thumping show struck international chords with a round table of Spaniards. The prettiest frowned off-puttingly, throughout, until I started Excaliburing round the room and hitting my short French romance verse lines and Welsh cynghanedd rhythms– a beautifully crafted co-ordination of dance movement with Arthurian Saesneg though I say so myself - until she got the giggles. I thanked her afterwards for humouring my lifetime-concocted Armada-dissing word-play and it was at this point that I learned from her companions that she couldn’t be offended because she couldn’t speak a word of English.
Pulls a wooden sword from a stone.
Gordon She’d recognised King Arthur though!
The declaiming continues.
Gordon I sought the Cauldron so long
Its name and Faith changed
To the Holy Grail
And you still haven’t grasped it...
A spattering of applause.
Gordon After ten minutes, I noticed two things. The management was getting ready – with a haste more Scottish than French – to present me with my bill. And my briefly hooked audience was chatting among itself again.
Gordon (declaiming) ‘So ends the Life of Arthur, ‘
Cheers and applause.
Waitress (very Scots) Twenty three pounds. No, you owe US twenty three pounds.
Gordon (to audience) This wasn’t the traditional Scottish thrift I’d seen sent up in The Hateful Heritage Show.
Hateful Heritage Actually not meanness at all but a deep-seated respect for the value of labour and the price of things. Only that morning I had bought a 24 piece Royal Doulton tea set from an antique shop and when the concerned ladies learned I had to transport it back on the train to Windsor, they spent ten minutes lovingly wrapping each piece in The Scotsman. The total bill for this labour and the graceful and enduring items was five pounds, about a tenth of what I would have paid some ‘I saw you coming’ merchant in Chelsea. Also the bus fares were so cheap you wondered if the driver hadn’t heard your jarring English accent right – always a possibility – but even then I saw local passengers argue the toss of that hard-earned coin with that driver. On the rare occasions I queued in the August cold and rain with scores of others for a fish supper instead of my usual designer-haggis or Spanish French Italian bar after-party, I was astonished at the quality of the chip shop haddock – they pitied you if you asked for cod – and the chips were the best I’ve had anywhere in my life even in Yorkshire. A meal in a newspaper. A banquet for five bob. Read To Ae Haggis by Robbie Burns if you want this put as belligerently as it ought to be.
Burns Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that would staw a sow
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?....
Applause for Hateful Heritage. Segue into different applause, sounds of a bodhran being dropped, cafe interior receding, a door and then the street again.
Gordon Or The Wealth of Nations if you prefer the economist of the Scottish Enlightenment to its Romantic poet. Sadly the designer bistros and wine bars I frequented had a less Scottish view of the wealth of patrons. I paid up.
Waitress Thank you. And you dropped this ...drum.
Gordon It’s a bodhran. Celtic. Bonailie n farewell, lass.
Waitress (French again) Au revoir, m’sieu.
Scene 14. The flyer-soaked streets again. Door opens. Sounds of an internet cafe
Gordon How much is it again?
Girl (halting, Russian) Same as yesterday and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. One pound for one half hour.
Gordon hands over coin.
Girl PC Number four.
Sounds of keyboard typing
Gordon Hullo cruel world. Welcome back to my festival blog- (with insincere histrionics)
“ The ref's just looking at his watch as Arthur and Boudicca come up to half time. It's raining - again. I'm beginning to wonder if there are any actual punters in Edinburgh or whether every audience is actually just a collection of performers in other shows temporarily 'resting' from their own sales pitches, showcasing, flyer-ing and performing. If so, what is the collective noun for such an audience.
Stand Up A delusion of costing you a grander.
Laughter (at Gordon not with.)
Gordon Seriously, if anyone who has ever enjoyed any aspect of my work is in Edinburgh this week and wants to see the Arthur show, today is a really good day. The Scotsman is reviewing it and it would be great if my lovely talented reviewer had an audience around her as she does so.”
More typing – lots of cursing as he’s not sure how to navigate the site
Gordon Ninja tickets. Twelve free tickets available for Arthur; Britain’s Making 8 pm tonight-
A loud sneeze at Gordon’s elbow. Two young whingeing backpacked Australians with horrendous nose colds are snuffling at the next PC
Aus 1 Jeez, this bloody weather mate.
Aus 2 Maybe we could stop over in London on our way to Barcelona. Got to be warmer there, mate.
Aus 1 I’m googling it now. Hundred dollars a night. Is it that OK?
Aus 2 Ah look, is it clean though mate? How many stars?
Aus 1 (sneezing) Three.
Aus 2 Might not be clean mate. I haven’t had a shower in a week.
Aus 1 You need a haircut and a shave too mate. Will it have a barber?
Aus 2 Never mind a barber, mate. I haven’t slept for a week.
Aus 1 (sneezing) Guess it was a bloody mistake getting a floor above the ‘liveliest night club in Britain’ mate.
Aus 2 Ah look, it looked all right on the bloody net, mate. ‘Cabaret two minutes walk away.’
Aus 1 (sneezing) That bloody first night I lay in bloody bed waiting for the crowd to stop shouting goodnight and I was still waiting four hours later. Did a million people pass under our window ten at a time or did they just stay there? Maybe we could stop over in London on our way to Barcelona.
Aus 2 What about germs and bed bugs though mate? I haven’t slept for a week.
Aus 1 Ah look-
Gordon (increasingly distracted) And you’ve been invading my personal space for a bloody quarter of an ’ar, ‘mite’. What happened to Advance Australia Fair. You’re whingeing like a pom in the outback! Some of us have been enduring stage death for three weeks. I’m trying to sell a bloody show here!
Aus 2 (oblivious) Sod this, cobber. Maybe we could stop over in London on our way to Barcelona? Got to be warmer there, mate.
Aus 1 Book another hour on the PC and try and get dry mate. Google Alice Springs...
Aus2 Ah, look mite….
The Aussie voices fade
East European Girl Still at it?
Gordon Yes.
Girl You are my best... customer.
Gordon What, with all this competition?
Girl Every day, like Church prayer. You want reviews print off? I give you cut price.
Gordon (gallows humour) No. I want them censored.
Girl (a Stalinist memory) Censored?
Gordon Airbrushed from my history and the reviewers sent to Siberia.
Girl That very funny. Your shows must be fun. You’re the only one who is ever funny in here as well
Gordon Or funny in here instead. No-one’s coming to them so it doesn’t matter.
Girl I will come. You should advertise on Twitter.
Gordon (he’s heard of it) Twitter?
Girl On phone. On screen. Everywhere. It’s the Trump card to world domination. I show you.
Sound of lightning high speed keyboard and then a message.
Girl (reading it on a screen) Venue 363 tonight. King Author rides Queen Godiva,
Gordon Guinevere.
Girl But rest is OK?
Pause
Gordon Sod it, leave it as it is. I’ll wing it.
Scene 15. Box office sounds. Petite students shushing lobby crowds who take no notice.
Gordon (desperate, ignored) Can I check if I’ve got any kind of house tonight? Only I’ve got the Scotsman in.
Punters (breathy) Fifteen adults for Aladdin Tights please.
Box office girl (printing tickets off,) One hundred and fifty pounds please.
Gordon Can I just -?
Box office girl Wait please. These people are buying tickets for a show-
Gordon And I’m performing a show, in ten minutes. With a reviewer in. The Scotsman. Yeah a real newspaper. Hence the stage furniture I am holding as there ‘isn’t room to leave it all behind our so-called stage-‘
Box office girl Next please?
Old lady punter Five adults for Aladdin Tights. please.
Box office girl (printing tickets off) Fifty pounds please.
Old lady Not so fast, young lady.
Gordon Not so fast!
Old lady These are concessions. We’re OAPs.
Box office girl (the customer is always right even this one, sweetly) I’ll just redo all that for you, very slowly.
Gordon I’ve already checked online that there were no sales through the Fringe office, not an hour ago anyway. Can you just check if I’ve got any venue sales? And Ninja Give-aways?
Box office girl (distracted) Ninja. What’s the code?
Gordon Thanks –a-lot.
Box office No need to be sarcastic. Voldemort says we’ve got to prioritise customers over performers.
Gordon (teeth-grinding calm) I’ve read Comrade Voldmort’s emailed directives too. ‘Thanks-a-lot’ is the code for picking up their free tickets.
Punter Twenty tickets for Aladdin Tights please. Adult.
The process continues.
Old Age Punter Where’s Aladdin?
Gordon (testy now) Up the ladder in his tights!
Old Age Punter We need to climb a ladder? I’m wearing a skirt!
Gordon It’s like the Emperor’s Clothes on Brighton Beach up here, Sir. No-one cares. (noticing she’s a woman) Sorry, ‘Madam’. (to the Girl) Look, Aladdin’s not on for half an hour. I’m on in five minutes. I’ve got to set the stage on and get costumed up. Could you just let me know if I’ve got any-
Box office girl (printing tickets off) Two hundred pounds please.
Punter 2 These are concessions.
Gordon Oh for ffff- (storms off through door into theatre)
Scene 16. Inside the tiny auditorium.
Lance Anyone in, apart from the Scotsman?
Gordon (panic) They were too busy selling their Carry On Under-pantomime up the Kaiber Pass - to the biggest so-called alternative arts festival audience in the world to tell me! (more exasperation) Has that techie left all that stuff stage for me to clear again.
Lance She was setting up sound effects for Aladdin Tights. I told her you were paying £90 and asked her to clear out.
Gordon Leaving me to clear her mess. Great.
Persuaders theme music. Gordon clears stage and lugs more of his own comically cumbersome gear out from behind. This goes on for a while.
Gordon (breathless) Next year – if there is a next year – I’m performing in my own clothes with a single prop.
Hysterical Aladdin Tights mood setting music plays off.
Gordon A gun.
Someone knocks on the door. A sudden terrified silence.
Gordon An audience! Time to squeeze behind the set of Aladdin Tights hearing the punters filing in. There’s only one thing worse.
Lance What’s that?
Gordon Not hearing them not filing in.
Lance laughs.
Gordon Do that laugh again during the show OK? Sound cues all set?
Knocking, more urgent now
Lance (distracted) I’ve got to do the ticket money first. Voldemort’s orders.
Gordon (jittery with nerves but also, finally, the master of his world) Remember, the timing of the first sound cue is crucial: the apocalyptic sword mime looks ridiculous otherwise. (cajolingly, with humour) And try to get the announcement right tonight. It’s Arthur; Britain’s May King. Not Arthur’s British Break In -
Lance (distracted) It’s the worst possible time for me right at the start with light and sound cues to start together on this microscopic deck. Why do I have to announce it then?
Gordon Because it’s the start.
Lance Why do I have to announce it at all?
Gordon Because otherwise I have to pay one of Voldemort’s death-eaters twenty quid to do it . Well, break a light!
Lance Thanks. (dashing to door) Break a leg. (exits, stumbling over some of the Aladdin Tights set, breaking a light)
Scene 17. Theatre door closes. Performer is alone. We hear muffled audience filing in from behind the stage.
Gordon (to self) One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen bums on Arthur’s seats. Wow! Fringe average multiplied by eight. That’s almost as much as Aladdin Tights gets in the two front rows. (sudden stage fright) Sixteen! Oh God!
American 1 (seating, laughs) Wow! That’s quite a set!
Aladdin What the hell is that?
American 2 A building site?
American 1 You’re looking at it like Sancho Panza. Brad. Look at it like Don Quixote. That’s Camelot in a boy’s imagination. That’s the sword in the stone. See.
American 2 Those dragon masks look like Mom and Dad.
American 1 Arthur and Guinevere.
Buttons (from the panto, whispers) A stick in a rock and two puppets!
American 2 Reminds me of when my dad used to beat me with a stick.
American 1 He beat you with a stick?
American 2 Yeah. When he found out I was gay.
Gordon (internal) Oh God, now I’m managing this guy’s PTSD.
American 1 Jesus!
American 2 Yup. That’s who he thought he was. He sent me out into the wilderness, man. I only thank God you were there.
American 1 (moved) Ah Brad! (they kiss)
The show before Gordon’s ends. A posh young cast discussing how it went.
Girl Aslan That was crap. We should start the show before the audience come in.
Murmurs of agreement
Girl Aslan So I’m already onstage giving a business speech about getting bums on seats. Then you do the bum joke and I strip off the power suit down to a black bra and pants.
Aslan 4 And then I wet myself.
Aslan 1 Those four stars in the Daily Mail brought in the Hamiltons. But up here we need the Scotsman.
Aslan 1 The Scotsman only reviews stuff with a Scottish slant. That’s how Gordon did it.
Lance Welcome to Arthur’s... British Break In
Gordon (delirious with tension, stentorian stage whisper) You had one job!
Laughter.
Scene 17. Gordon’s feet scraping across stage. Silence. Into the silence drifts external sounds: Aladdin Tights thumping away upstairs, bagpipes and courtyard cafe chatter drifting in through a window.
Gordon (internal monologue ) Is that the Scotsman – right at the front? Oh God, looking as judgemental as a first night Total Theatre Award Judge? ...Where’s the sound cue dammit! Why is Lance hunched over the player trying to fix something NOW. Lance? Lance?
Gordon (aloud, the instinctive professional taking over, with King Arthur authority, or like the old lag in the Dresser) I’d like a sound cue please!
Laughter. But still no sound cue.
Lance (off, delirious) Arthur Sixpence.
Gordon You had one job!
Gordon (internal) Shaking his head at me like a helpless puppy!
More laughter. But it’s rather supportive.
Gordon (internal) What’s la Scotsman writing? Madcap? Maybe they like me. They can see I’m up against it and want me to do well. Right. Improvise! (aloud, like a radio commentator) Far away and long ago, the land was divided and leaderless. Barbarians invade from north, east and south...
Laughter. Applause.
Gordon (internal) It’s not supposed to be funny! (rising to it, waving the sword as if the sound cue is there ) A great king, a dragon head, was needed to unite the people and drive out the invaders. Such a king would prove himself by drawing out a weathered sword from a wondrous cock.
Laughter
Gordon (correcting himself) Rock.
Silence
Gordon (going with it) Cock
Louder laughter
Now the sound cue comes, way too late. The Stones. Gimme Shelter.
Gordon plays the business with Excalibur, now pantomime funny instead of portentous. The sound cue truncates abruptly
Gordon (addressing Lance satirically) Thanks, Lance. A lot.
Wild laughter and applause.
Gordon (internal) Oops. But they’re laughing. Amazing, you spent years creating a script and then improvise the biggest laugh out of the air, out of a mistake. (aloud) Many years passed and many strong men failed. At last, a boy succeeded. His name...
Applause
Gordon Was Arthur!
Clanging with wooden sword on metal rim of bodhran. Laughter and applause.
Gordon The King of the summer country. And my summer country is long gone. But the May King. (clapping) The winter king. (football claps) The May king. (claps) The winter king.
Audience joining in unexpectedly like a football crowd
Gordon (internal) They’re joining in? How the hell am I going to keep that going for forty five minutes? (heavy breathing, aloud) The May King! (football claps) The Winter King! (football claps) The May King! (football claps) The Winter King! (football claps) The May King…. (no end in sight)
Cheering. We recognise the alkie, the Big Issue Seller, the Russian girl, the waitress and barmaid, the Indian doctor’s wife etc….. amid the rest.
Gordon (silencing the audience) REMAINS!!!
Laughter and applause segueing into early morning high street sounds.
Scene 18. Ordinary Edinburgh workers, too early for the Fringe crowds which will start an hour later. Sound of newsagent door being opened.
Indian voice Hullo again. Scotsman?
Gordon (affecting casual) And a Guardian. Please.
Hands over money
Indian voice You are my most regular customer! Expecting review?
Gordon (abandoning pretence) It should have been in on Monday at the latest. It’s Wednesday already. My run will be over soon.
Indian voice Good news is no news?
Gordon opens paper and shuffles pages.
Gordon You might well be right. (suddenly) Oh my God, it’s in...
Scene 19. Edinburgh Scots voice; dependable, definitive.
The Scotsman The Scotsman Weds 24 Aug 2011. ONE MAN AND HIS MASKS; ARTHUR BRITAIN’S MAKING ***
Gordon (a bit Welsh in his excitement) THREE STARS!
The Scotsman Delving into British history, this is slam poetry with a patriotic twist. Attempting to tell what is essentially the story of Britain from the time of Arthur to the present, this madcap production combines tales of the ancient world with football chants and sports commentary.
... What is clearly a long-held passion for the glittering career of a great king is told in an arresting way...Bennett races from the heat of battle to a cricket match; from Glastonbury and the valleys of Wales to John O'Groats, and on to Land's End.
Despite the confusion, this interpretation is full of boyhood glee. It is a yarn well spun, yes, with a few stiches dropped, but vibrant and poetic enough to be a commendable effort.
Scene 20.
Gordon (on phone) Can I speak to (the reviewer) please?
Scotsman Who is it?
Gordon Gordon Bennet.
Scotsman (relaxing) Oh hullo. Speaking.
Gordon Thank you for the review.
Scotsman No thank you, for not calling us The Scotchman. For the record, and quote as a public review if it helps, it was by far one of the most original pieces of writing I've ever seen. And it sparked an interest in Arthur and British history in a way nothing ever has before, so there you go! I also think the show would sound even more amazing in a room that lets sound echo, and I'll look out for you and upcoming show dates.
Gordon (internal) Wish she’d put that in the paper as well. Voldermort and his bad time Box Office girls will probably spend the last week stalling the published review anyway, just in case I embarrass his venue by proving him wrong in a national newspaper. (narrating ) The other good reviews all came in too late to affect my sales.
Three Weeks (London) Three stars from Three Weeks. Boudicca’s story is reinvented as a punk fable in this history lesson/political speculation. When Bennet speaks about Boudicca’s tale itself, he’s impassioned, ruthless and funny, close to a poetic ‘Horrible History’ book. The direction is energetic – particularly the clownish interactions with the ‘Masks.’ Even though the show runs flat about half way through...(fade)
Academic These poems are tremendous. I like the mingling of humdrum modern details with myth and heroic events. I also like the mixture of Malory, Celtic versions, Gildas and other Arthurian material. Did one man really do all those voices? Very funny and never dull. A triumph!
Scene 21
Alternative promoter (New York) Alternative Late Night Cabaret at the Gilded Ballroom Tonight (Thursday Night): A Fantastic Night of Top Comics and Songwriters!1/2 Price TKTS (only £6!) plus a full bar!"Top Five Late Night Shows at Fringe"- The List"Five Stars!"- The Herald. Monday. Aug.23- 1) Small Beer, 2) No-one Much, 3) Jill Wannabe , 4) Billy No-name, 5) Zak Yank III, 6)-Kim Sung Who, 7) Gordon Bennet ,
Sounds of this cabaret. Loud, distorted, drunken, Gordon drumming, dream-fabulous. Applause.
Alternative promoter 8) The Nones, 9) A N Stand Up, 10) Leila Yawn, 11)Jock McChancer, 12) Zed Lister 13. The Busker
Busker There was once a Fringe act called Cassandra
Her pimp couldn’t under or stand her
She was honest and bold
And she couldn’t be sold
So he raped all her assets and banned her.
Gordon Dark!
Busker You want to heckle but you’re not intelligent enough to do it.
Alt promoter We agreed no heckling.
Gordon I wasn’t heckling!
Alt promoter And the winner is…. Jock McChancer!
Shetland fiddle and wild Skye singing . Gordon drums along on his bhoadran. Gradually fading into birdsong. Over this:
Scene 22. Gordon (narrating) And we were still celebrating at 4 am. “Vibrant and poetic!”. “Impassioned, ruthless and funny!” Lance got so drunk he not only read his own Collected Works to an enthralled table of other drunks but gave them all away amid wild cheers. His only copies. After which Lance and I helped some Edinburgh young ladies create a manacle-snapping arts installation out of repressive traffic cones until a police car approached. Voldemort was in the back! The cops clearly had bigger haddock to fry. We exuberantly offered the ladies two comps for the show and they said they usually ignored these but we were cool so they’d come. Then we went home like students a third of our age to tea and toast as dawn came up over the Firth of Forth. Magic.
Morning sounds along the Firth, late Fringe carousers going home. Emerging from this, getting louder, then passing by into a sort of Macbeth bagpipe eeriness.
Busker There was once a holy art scriber
Who lost his life’s work to a diva
He ran offstage to Spain
And in wings of his brain
Of her life he resolved to relieve her.
Scene 22. Royal Mile Bagpipes. Streets as usual.
Gordon (on phone) So what time you arriving in Waverley?
Wife (on phone) I’m just past Berwick and some beautifully rugged sea views and entering the Southern Uplands of Scotland as we speak –very different from Norfolk. You realise we haven’t seen each other for three weeks. That’s the longest since 1979!
Gordon Don’t get lost. Waverley’s got twenty three more platforms than King’s Lynn. And they’re all underground. Half of Edinburgh’s carved into granite mountain that sailed here from a landmass on the other side of the planet and the rest is tunnelled into it. The Southern Uplands of Scotland are where the landmass swung round like a great fist and gave England an Edinburgh kiss about twenty millenniums ago. It’s still getting over it. Stay on Platform 19 or I might not recognise you. You definitely won’t recognise me.
Wife Why?
Gordon I’ve been eating like a horse and drinking like a fish for a month. But I’ve still lost a stone in nervous energy.
Wife And was it worth it?
Gordon Every way except financially. There’s just two hundred quid coming back from the box office .
Wife That’ll pay for my train fare. So just the six grand down.
Gordon Not quite. The local rag is paying me fifty quid for an opinion piece.
Scene 21. Word processor clicks: a newspaper article
Gordon (not as reliable or measured as the Scotsman) Historic Fringe success! After twenty nine days at the Edinburgh Fringe, treading cobbles in the rain to granite cellars to watch more shows in one day than I’ve seen in the previous year, I’m finally at the end of my run. Alternative art is everywhere but most of it attracts more empty seats than walk out of some of the self-tribute famous TV acts. One clueless group of celebrity sniffers had their photo taken with Big Brother ‘star’ Pete outside before chattering loudly through the first twenty minutes of a genuinely alternative cabaret until being asked to leave and then ‘exorcised’ with a mock-cremation of their litter. There was hip hop poetry performed by smudge-faced angels in dirty cellars and fresh, vibrant new reminders of the original eight theatre groups who turned up uninvited at the 1947 Edinburgh Festival and performed anyway, but these were dwarfed by giant advertisement hoardings of established acts. If the performer is TV-famous, and therefore the house is full, there are already stars in the reviewers’ eyes, but otherwise the star system is as consistent as an A level examiner on acid. And ‘weird’ seems to be a reviewer negative – is this the Fringe or Top of the Pops? (pause, checking himself as this isn’t really selling his headline or his ‘success’) For all that, the Fringe brings out your very best, even though – or maybe because - the average Fringe audience is two, spoilt for choice and as hard to please as the Glasgow Empire. I’ve wanted it to be over since the day I got here and now it is over – I miss it.
Busker There was once a vampire promoter
Arrested by cops on the border
The caber he tossed
Calling ‘heads’ - well, he lost
Even though it was really the busker.
American Say aren’t you that author guy who wrote Fringe Benefits?-
Busker No. My writing has nothing to do with performance.
America But you’re a busker?
Busker (hurrying off) Not anymore. My work here is done.
Scene 24. Captain’s bar. August 31. Live Celtic music –bar packed with returned locals fiddles, folk guitars, singing.
Gordon (carefully pronouncing the ale) Two pints of Deuchars and two malts of the moment, please, Barbara.
Barmaid Deuchars! Spoken like a local, Surrr!
Gordon Barbara, this is me lady wife.
Barmaid I’ve heard all about ye. (very friendly) Are you all right squashed up there?
Wife Yes! Thank you.
Barmaid (cheery) We have him speaking the language. Finally.
Gordon (warmly) I had a good teacher.
Barmaid Aye. Where’s Lance?
Gordon He’s looking for his poems. He can’t remember giving them all away after he gave the reading of his life to a 4 am bar. He can’t remember the reading either.
Barmaid Ha! Well, that’s life. The bits you can’t remember. The bits that kill you. I see a lot of that in here.
Gordon Is there anywhere to sit down?
Barmaid At the top there by the band. I’ll show you up.
Gordon Thanks.
Excuse me sounds as they move up through bar.
Alkie (in yer face Scots) Still at it then?
Gordon (almost Scots) Aye. (English again) Well, no, actually. Finished my last show yesterday.
Alkie I’m having a wee birthday drink. That ye on the posterrr?
Gordon Well, my mask.
Alkie How did ye do?
Gordon Three stars in the Scotsman.
Alkie I gave it four.
Gordon You saw it?
Alkie Aye!
Gordon The panto fatties liked the history but they didn’t like the link with the sport.
Alkie Away! The sports was the whole point. And you did the Scots voice like a native… from Stirling.
Gordon A malt of the moment for my friend here, please, Barbara. It’s his birthday.
Barbara (half to herself) It’s his birthday every day.
Reaching top of bar.
Gordon Can we sit there?
Local (frosty) If ye must.
Gordon What about the dog?
Local Right, I’ll move ma dog.
Local woman You’re treading on ma coat.
Gordon It’s the only way I can get to the seat. (attempting a joke) And my back’s a bit stiff from performing.
Zero sympathy. Silence.
Gordon (trying to thaw the ice) There was a Stand Up here last week who said if you think flower arranging is a competitive activity, try folk music.
They do not laugh.
Gordon But I say if you think folk music is a backstabbing activity, try poetry readings. I’ve been in some tight places – including the main bar of a football stadium before a game competing with 400 drunken pie-gobblers - but my worst ever was the Fat Controller at a Poetry Against The Ego festival who told me he wasn’t fit to do up my literary boot straps with his humble heart-pourings while fixing it so he topped the bill – announcing himself with ‘Gosh Gordon you’re a hard act to follow.’…
Silence
Gordon (squeezing in) You performing next?
Local Aye.
Gordon Music knows no national boundaries. Especially Celtic music. I’m half Welsh. Need a bodhran to back you?
Local No.
Wife (trying to break the glacier) Is that a Welsh instrument?
Local woman Why would it be Welsh?
Gordon It’s got a Welsh flag on the case.
Local (scathing) It’s got a Welsh flag on the case so it’s Welsh! (as if to a village idiot) It’s got a Welsh flag in the case because we toured Wales.
Gordon (pointedly) Did they make you welcome?
Local woman Shouldn’t you be away by now? You’ve had our city for a month as it is.
Local (to the pub in general) The Fringe is over for another year!
Local woman (with feeling) Hurray!
Exhorting – but not getting - a whole pub cheer.
Half the bar Hurray!!
Local This city is built for 500,000 folk and the roads were built for an age of carriages and claymores - impossible to navigate at the best of times. In August it gets two million more people than it’s built for. This is our local but because it’s venue number 364 and full of Sassenach performers and their crowds we can’t even get a wee dram and a snatch of fiddle all summer. We just bloody live and work here. It’s September tomorrow. We’ve been away from our local in the hills with the rest of the real city for four weeks, pal. Now we’d like it back.
Gordon Fair enough. (made reckless with his experiences this summer) But you do make a fortune out of us to help with the subsidised bus fares and free tuition and free prescriptions. I’ve lost six grand up here, and I don’t mean the short-changing some of your student barman get up to in the pubs like it’s some kind of national call to arms rather than racist cheating of a guy sweating to put on an honest show. The least you can do is be civil. Everyone else knows which side their Edinburger’s whiskied on.
Local (getting crosser) Your six grand goes into the pockets of the promoters and hoteliers and publicans and non Scottish holidaymakers and posh students and Fringe offices pal. The poor dinnae see a penny of it. It’s not all scholars and gentry up here-
Gordon The beggar I gave a demob happy fiver to last night would disagree as would the restaurant workers and street vendors and shopkeepers and bar workers I pay a working total of fifty pounds every day. Not to mention the Big Issue issue seller and the car park attendant who keeps an eye on my £10 a day car. And the overtime roster on the local Tesco’s is longer than some of the panto cast lists I’ve seen up here.
Barmaid (friendly to all) Everything all right up here with ye folk?
Local woman D’ye mind giving it a rest now, Englishman? We’re needing to play. Drink up your Deuchars and go home.
Gordon I am home. See that guy over there, watching us? He’s reading a book of my poetry in a way that never happens in the English pubs back home. One of ten books I’ve donated around the city incidentally. I’m half Welsh and a whole Celt. I love your crazy four seasons in one day misty Romantic cussing sore-hearted love-hate tale and money-spinning granite mountain country. I love your hard-mouthed warm-hearted women, your statues to mouthy privates rather than stiff-lipped generals and your glistening consonants and coruscating whisky vowels. And this month I’ve felt more at home in this city of yours with its real-folk music and its reverence for the written word than I have anywhere else on earth. You sure you don’t want a bodhran player.
Locals We dinnae want ye pal. Fuck off.
They start their set. The Skye boat song. Gordon lingers, then drinks up and goes.
Gordon (to barmaid) Night.
Barmaid (busy) One more afore ye go?
Gordon It’s September in five minutes. It’s been great but it’s over. I’ll listen to this song. It was my lullaby when I was a wain. Thanks for everything, Barbara. The show is over. Time to go home.
Scottish poet (performing Burns) “Ae fond kiss. And then we sever...”
Barmaid (kisses him and Wife) Well haste ye back.
The Skye boat song plays. Then bagpipes outside in the wet street. Gordon sings along and keeps time with his drum and this continues as the street sounds fade.
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