The Inevitable Edinburgh Fringe Come Down

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afvs, another fucking variety show, Blues, cabaret, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe, Travel, variety

My god, nine months since I wrote a blog? I could have had a baby in that time. I haven’t, of course, I’ve been ridiculously busy trying to juggle six cats, a husband, a toddler and a career! It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

So I find myself at home after an amazing season in Edinburgh. A season of really hard work but good hard not bad hard. The sort of work that leaves your muscles aching when you finally slip into bed, buoyed by gin, and surrender yourself to the bone numbing fatigue and, (ignoring your million mile an hour monkey mind!) finally the oblivion of sleep, only to wake up the next day to do it all again. AFVS was a joy to do – an amazing venue staff, sold out houses, hilarious and generous guests and the best team I could ask for.

 

 

Edinburgh is a city seemingly built uphill. It doesn’t matter which way you go, you always seem to be going uphill but it is the soundness of one’s mind which goes downhill in Edinburgh! Gradually as the month progresses, your body clock changes, your ability to cook like an adult disappears. I think I ate more chips in this last month than in the rest of my life, put together! You begin to drink more, laugh more, cry more. You become, in equal measure, desensitised and uber-sensitised which leads to the threat of tears which glower behind your eyes like ominous storm clouds! You begin to see your own Fringe madness reflected in the faces of your friends. You treasure the moments of respite when you find yourself away from the Fringe. For me, it was an afternoon leafing through the archives at my tailors. Three hundred years of tailoring history crammed into books, rammed with swatches, drawings and letters. It was heaven. Thank you, Dan Fearn at Stewart Christie, it was more beneficial than you can know. It was an afternoon singing old songs around a piano with dear friends and glorious cocktails. It was sifting through vintage in Armstrong’s.

So then you find yourself at the end, with the sudden and bitter anticlimax that the finale of your final show brings. You chuck out your left over flyers, de-rig your Fringe life, stuff it into bags and wend your weary way home.

And then what?

It’s quiet. There aren’t teenagers howling ‘A Very Happy Un-Birthday’ beneath your bedroom window at an ungodly hour of the early afternoon. There aren’t ticket sales to check, running orders to send out, costumes to fix (who am I kidding? In this house the mending pile is a veritable Everest!), cast and crew to wrangle. There’s a stack of over-stuffed suitcases silently watching me and trying to trip me up as I stumble around, half asleep. They can bloody wait.

First morning home I wake early and alone. I lay in bed watching the grey fingers of the early dawn seep through gaps in my curtains. The crushing, and irrational, post-Fringe loneliness comes scratching at my heart’s door. “What now?” it whispers. “Who are you now?” I lay there, as the fear and depression seeps into my bones. I know it is only a temporary cloud. A week or two at most before real life rhythm is remembered like a familiar tune. Though for those two weeks, every mundane chore in my life is like a personal affront. Washing up? Laundry? Cat litter trays? Nappies? Unpacking? “I’m made for the stage and the glamour and wine and song” my mind thunders like a petulant child. I can’t find my clothes, I don’t remember where I packed them and frankly I don’t care. I find a pair of old harem pants and a discoloured baseball tee. They’ll do, for now.

I reason that I’m not the only one feeling the apres-Fringe blues. Thousands of other people are waking up feeling the same way. Happy to be home, sad to leave; that odd contradictory conundrum. I’m happy to indulge that dusky canine for a while.

I fill my days with work and child. I record an important new track for the Siren album, attend the weddings of several dear friends. The return of a favourite show in London at the weekend. I throw out clothes I don’t like. I spend time with my boys and my menagerie of creatures, all of whom are apparently thrilled to see me.

I ignore the unpacking – maybe I could just leave it packed for next August?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edinburgh Fringe – Part 2 – The Comedown

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afvs, another fucking variety show, burlesque, cabaret, edfringe, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe, glamour, lindy, Pleasance Dome, swing, the Fringe, Tom Barnes, variety

So the Fringe is done and dusted for another year. Edinburgh’s cobbled streets are returned paperless to her residents. Venues are stripped bare, blacks folded and stored and flight cases packed. The Fringe ‘family’ created over the month return to the real world, each of us a man alone.

Now is the time when one finds out whether those amazing friendships, love affairs and chance meetings are something more or simply smoke and mirrors veiled in misty rain.

I had, quite simply, the most wonderful Edinburgh Fringe. A Fringe quite unlike any other.

 

 

 

Another F*cking Variety Show was an epic, joyous and chaotic marathon of variety. We had around sixty acts in over the month, acts of all kinds from the weird and wonderful, to the strange and beautiful, to the uproariously hilarious and mad.

I loved every single second. I had the pleasure of taking my audiences on a rollercoaster journey every night, introducing them to people they had never met or maybe even people they knew very well. We had performance art icons, stars from the fetish scene, many a musical genius, some of the biggest names on the comedy scene and intenational burlesquers who left everyone feeling steamy!

 

You throw it all together, with a room full of smoke, some wonky sparkly letters, five costume changes, the most divine piano player Tom Barnes and my ‘Girls Friday’ Anna Newton and Sophie Mason and you have ‘Another F*cking Variety Show’; but it couldn’t happen without the audience.

 

Dave the Bear, Me, Jaz Delorean and Mr B – The Gentleman Rhymer

The audience, that night after night gave us their energy and their applause and sending us out to the bar on a high and often very late! The team at the Pleasance Dome were superb, professional and very understanding of our cabaret cons (glitter, candle wax and champagne…you get the picture!) Let’s hope that they’ll have us back next year!

Outside of the show, life in Edinburgh was really busy, for the first two weeks we had Rafferty up with us so life revolved somewhat around him. The odd kids show, my favourite being ‘Funz and Gamez’ (Rafferty even received a Copstick review in the Scotsman for his cameo). Swing dance Flash Mobs organised by the wonderful Tricity Vogue made me smile.

There were nights of drinking and dancing, those ‘Dixey’ boys are diamonds and one particular afternoon of ‘Ripping Tweed’ for Walker Slater which will remain with me for many memories to come. Gin, dancing and tweed, what could be nicer? I mean, it might have been better if it hadn’t rained but doesn’t that add to the charm? A private courtyard with dripping moss walls, a hidden tweed paradise in the very heart of the Old Town, it was a delight to share a stage with the ever-elegant Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer for an audience of beautifully attired people sipping cocktails. Getting ‘steamy’ with Tigger and Jett Adore and the conversations that went with meant the world to me, just that hour out of the Fringe madness is so very necessary. I found time to visit Studio XIII, my favourite place to get tattooed and had a pirate tattoo on my thigh done by the amazing Jack Peppiette for my JackJack. It’s not quite finished, we need to get more colour in there, but my pain threshold gave up after three hours! I’ll need to go back to Edinburgh next week, (oh how dreadful!)

So now, I find myself at home. How does one decompress from the Fringe experience? Be kind to yourself. Hole up, allow yourself to be a bit down, relive those happy memories, treasure and build on those new friendships. Keep in touch with your friends, let them reach out to you and don’t be afraid to reach out to them. Remember that you are not alone, there are thousands of people feeling exactly like you right now.
If all else fails, just remember that it is less than 365 days until it all starts again. See you there?

Love Lili.
x

All photos: Melanie Smith, Jack Peppiette, Lili la Scala & Clive Holland

Lili’s Essential Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide

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advice, afvs, another fucking variety show, armstrongs, burlesque, cabaret, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe, Mat Ricardo, ondine, stuart goldsmith, the dogs, the Fringe, walker slater

Every year, a plethora of ‘Fringe Survival Guides’ are written so I thought that I would add what little wisdom I have gathered. I have been to every Edinburgh Fringe since 2005, first as a street performer with a double act with my sister, then as a street performer alone and cabaret/burlesque guester. Then, after I met my husband, we moved indoors. Several solo shows and a variety show further down the line and here we are. Along the way, I have learned some stuff and I thought that today, two weeks before AFVS opens for its third season, I’d share it with you.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to eat and drink. Eat properly, try to have three meals a day. It is a bloody slog doing shows but it isn’t just shows. You’ll be flyering for anything from two to five hours a day, potentially on very little sleep. I’d advise a really good breakfast, a Berocca and at least two litres of water a day, or more if your show is particularly physical. There is plenty of moisture in Edinburgh, generally coming down in stair rods but unfortunately the human body has yet to find a way to drink via osmosis so make that Evian bottle your friend. Hydrate your head – it will keep you sane.

If you are a London performer, don’t think that because it is August you will need your summer wardrobe. Edinburgh has the most delightful way of throwing many seasons at you, sometimes all at once. I tend to take my Autumn wardrobe, so a field of tweeds and tartan wools. I have the most delicious tartan cape which I adore wearing at Fringe time, it’s floor length, warm, it has a Scottish Widows hood and a Sherlock Holmes-esque mini cape. It is also bright yellow. It is actually my favourite thing, I found it at Armstrong’s Vintage three years ago.

Be nice. To everybody; but be especially nice to the doorkeepers of the industry bars. They are the gatekeepers to a world of fabulous networking – and isn’t that really what we are all there for? Occasionally an A-lister might wander in, I remember a few years ago Hugh Grant came in, the Catholic priest I was with offered him a blessing although to be honest, Hugh was so stoned he probably thinks he imagined that! My observation is that Four Weddings was a long, long, long time ago. Ah! The onward march of time. Unkinder to some than others, thank heavens for post production.

Remember that Edinburgh, the City, doesn’t owe you anything, you are but a mere visitor grubbing around the hem of her tartan gown. Treat her with courtesy, please don’t piss in her alleyways, throw up in her gutters or leave your sexual detritus littered in her nooks. Aside from anything else, you never know who you might see and do you really want that casting director, song writer or future spouse’s first image of you to be a piss-soaked, vomit-sprayed huddle? Unless that is what you are going for.

You will be tempted to be drunk for days, we’ve all done it in that 24/7 melee that is Edinburgh Fringe. By all means get so wasted you forget your own name but remember that Edinburgh Fringe is a marathon not a sprint, so don’t spend the rest of the month broke and hungover. Save it for that final week when the reviews are done, the audiences steady and the pressure is lessened.

Someone once told me that Edinburgh is a dance not a race (I believe it was the gorgeous Mr Stuart Goldsmith). It will be tempting to compare yourself to your friends and compatriots. This is a one way street to absolute sure-fire self destruction and self-doubt. Everyone has their own Fringe, have yours. It might be your year to sell out a huge venue and get a galaxy of five star reviews, it probably won’t. Don’t crow if you are doing well, be humble because the very next person you come across might be having the hardest month of their life.

Whilst we are talking about reviews, I would always say DON’T READ THEM! It is simply one person’s opinion and it will give you a false sense of where you are at; even if you get a five star from the Scotsman, I’d still say don’t read it (maybe read it when you get home in September). Just enjoy your journey and don’t buy into the press that surrounds you, or anyone else for that matter. It makes me feel incredibly old to say I remember a time when social media and online blogs didn’t exist at the Fringe, it was a happier, less pressurised time. Now, as you check in every ten minutes, blog, tumblr and tweet, try to find time to not; live in the moment you are in right now without checking to see who is watching from afar. It is no longer a case of ‘what happens at the Fringe stays at the Fringe’ but more likely ‘what happens at the Fringe is watched, commented on and liked by your mother’s neighbour’s cat in a multi-platform way’. So keep that in mind when you meet the sexual partner of your dreams whilst your partner is dog-sitting at home.

I will leave you on a piece of advice that will keep you sane. Take time out from the Fringe. Yes, it is an amazing month, a creative, fabulous, social and professional trade show whirl, but it can be draining, exhausting and depressing. Take a day, or half a day to get out. Go eat in a restaurant that has real cutlery (I recommend Ondine or The Dogs), climb Arthur’s Seat, try on/buy suits at Walker Slater (that’s mine) or jump on a train to somewhere else entirely. You step outside of the Edinburgh Fringe bubble and suddenly the biggest Fringe in the world seems so very tiny.

To those about to Edinburgh Fringe – I salute you.

Love Lili.

PS. In all seriousness, if the Fringe does start to overwhelm you – seek help. Fringe Central have heaps of amazing performer services so don’t be afraid; they literally have seen it all before.

Another F*cking Variety Show – 31st July – 23rd August – Queen Dome, Pleasance Dome, 11pm