Oh what a day…

I headed up to the venue around 4pm, the football had left me in a somewhat jubilant mood…

Today is renowned as the easiest day to fill a Free Fringe venue and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Thanks to a big group of my football friends turning up, the venue was packed full 15-minutes before the how start time. Even with added seats and standing only room, we had to turn people away!

The room was rowdy, this became even more evident during the warm up. The noise level had the potential here to become an issue but a couple of stern words seemed to have done the trick. The big issue seemed to be a Glaswegian guy and his two friends at the back.

After one of the opening jokes, based on my long standing membership of the Liberal Democrats and my being gay, he had shouted out to the room “I don’t know which one’s worse”. He was quickly reminded that it was 2018 and that if he had an issue with either then he was more than welcome to leave (well, that’s a politer version of what I actually said).

Slowly it seemed we were getting back into some kind of rhythm until once again it was spoilt by our guest at the back of the room. Eventually he was asked to leave – people in the room were growing as impatient as I with his heckling, which maybe would have cut the mustard in the 1970s.

Finally the show could begin. It’s just a shame that it had taken half an hour for this to happen. I’ve got to admit that I had pretty much lost the plot during that time.

Once I had a room full of people up for comedy, suddenly that old stand up instinct returned. The second half of the show was great fun – it was the kind of show that I had hoped it would all be tonight!

The Fringe certainly does have its challenges, especially during free shows. For some reason some people think that because they haven’t paid to get in that they somehow have the right to take the piss. Not on my watch…

I really did need a big drink tonight!! On to day nine tomorrow!