Tag: edinburgh fringe

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The Attraction of the One-Off Piece

I make a point of seeing at least one show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year. My first one was yesterday, titled The Greatest Literary Beef of the 21st Century, hosted by Ross McCleary and Stefan Mohamed.

While I’m only familiar with Stefan by association, I’ve known Ross for a couple of years now. He has a highly surreal sense of humour often centres around highlighting a concept and workshopping possible ways to make it funnier, with a lot of help from his online followers, many of whom were in the audience.

This show followed the surreal route. It took the form of the two poets exchanging paper letters to intentionally create a feud between them both. It benefitted from its brevity, with the show itself restricted to just one 40-minute performance rather than a multi-day run. There was also a donation bucket offered at the end, so the audience could choose how much to give, if at all.

I’ve always been particularly attracted to works that are a one-off rather than part of a series or serial. For instance, one of my favourite books is the standalone Wired Love by Ella Cheever Thayer, while I don’t think Spike Jonze is likely to direct a sequel to one of my favourite films, Being John Malkovich.

I’m going back to the Fringe over the coming days, so I hope to see more off-one bangers while I’m there.

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Pen at Work

Two weeks ago, I spoke about seeing a one-woman monologue at the Edinburgh Fringe. It particularly appealed to me because I’d previously written my own play with a similar theme and presentation.

With the festivals now over for another year, my attention has turned to giving my own work its first major rewrite for some time, including a new snappier title.

In particular, the main character has always been an English literature student who keeps a video diary I changed the subject to a music and video production course, giving her more reason to use a camcorder. I’ve also restructured the narrative to include self-interruptions where she looks back at her student days from 15 years in the future.

If I really give the piece my attention, it should be roughly redrafted by next week, and then I need to start reshaping it neatly into its new form.

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The Art of the Anecdote

On Thursday, I went to see the new Gyles Brandreth show Break a Leg, which is running at the Edinburgh Fringe until Sunday 26 August.

In his career as a writer, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament, he’s become friends with a number of people in the worlds of entertainment and politics. The show talks about his acquaintance with a few of them, from June Whitfield to Frankie Howard.

The show is listed in the Comedy section of the brochure as there are a lot of laughs. Yet it isn’t stand-up, nor is it bragging. Rather, he uses his privileged access to these well-known figures and tells humorous anecdotes about them in his slightly camp fashion.

By User of Waffle TV YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/waffIeTvUK/) [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Gyles Brandreth in 2013
As such, his material is strong. The show could run for two hours and there would still be more to tell, and the audience would probably lap it up. But not everyone has such great anecdotes.

In 2007, I went to an event featuring Clive Swift, who played Richard Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. He specifically didn’t want to discuss his sitcom days. Instead, he was there to tell us about his theatre career and how he’d worked with prominent stage actors such as Peter O’Toole.

It quickly became apparent, however, that he’d worked with these notable thespians only in supporting roles and that he was trying to turn minor episodes into a big deal. He was certainly never friends with them. One anecdote, for example, involved meeting Sir Laurence Olivier by chance in a theatre bathroom and hearing some worldly advice from him.

The only factor that saved Swift’s show from being a total train wreck was his skill on the trombone, accompanied by a pianist called Claire Greenway. Had it been a musical event with those minor stories peppered between songs, it might have worked well.

A review from the Scotsman newspaper very much captures the essence of the performance; scroll down past the review of Pete Firman to read it.

The lesson here is to make sure your material stands up to some scrutiny. Many performers – especially comedians – like to arrange preview shows, often to an audience who have paid a special reduced price for a ticket. This approach is invaluable for ironing out any kinks in the material and a useful guideline for how listeners will react at different parts of the script.

Additionally, there’s a lot to be said for having an honest friend or professional who can listen to your show to tell you what works and which parts need strengthening.

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Input vs Output

There won’t be much of an entry this week. I’m still busy chewing over the wonderful shows from Edinburgh last week; at the same time, I’m struggling to commit a couple of poems to paper.

Instead, let’s both go for a walk, albeit in different physical places. That always helps me loosen my mental sawdust, and I hope it does the same for you.