The Edinburgh Diaries: It's Showtime!

So on Wednesday I returned home from Edinburgh with an empty purse and a million memories, along with the company cold and a buggered left leg* and a hefty dose of exhaustion. It's fair to say that I had an excellent Fringe Fest with some truly wonderful people and that my life feels ever so empty now I'm not waking up to a flat full of them every day. It was a bit of a mad week, and an exhausting one, but it was definitely fun enough to make up for that. Didn't get to see as many shows as I had originally intended to, which was in part because I very rapidly ran out of money and also because I hadn't actually factored in that I would be unavailable across the peak time for shows each day (6-8pm) due to y'know, being on stage and all. I did get to see a few though, favourite of which was definitely The Vocal Orchestra which was a spontaneous last day decision. They were completely amazing-if you closed your eyes you wouldn't know you were listening to something being performed by only the voices of the 6 people on stage, and it was such a great atmosphere that you couldn't help clap and sing along. Also want to give mention to a wonderful performance of my favourite Shakespeare play, As You Like It, done by SEDOS. Despite the fact that it was cut down to be only an hour long, I still loved it as much as I always do and it was performed very well indeed.

The Baskervilles Cast warming up fabulously on the Mile.
(Techie, Frederick, Lady B, Holmes, Mabel, Director,
Watson, Watson's Moustache, Bellatrix, Marple, Lestrade)

Our shows (http://www.twoshadesofblue.org.uk/) were pretty damn fantastic too. I managed to see the other two shows (Sherlock Holmes and the Sound of the Baskervilles and Quantum Battlestar Deep-Space Voyager Tardis Wars: The Million Dollar Space Epic**) 3 times each and play the "Trying to make people corpse" game on the last night which was a little bit too much fun. They were really well done and so very enjoyable to watch every time and even though half of the casts were suffering with 'Fringe Flu', you couldn't tell by their excellent performances. And Back to the Future:The Pantomime? Well that was pretty awesome too.

1.5VOLTS!
(Stolen from Biff, who hopefully won't mind)

We sold out every night PLUS 2/3 of the seats for an extra charity performance that we added last minute and I just had the most amazing time performing it again and again. I danced, I sang my heart out, I jiggled (there was a lot of jiggling) and I finally finally got to use my crazy Welsh accent on a stage-something I have wanted to do for a good while. We pulled stupid faces at each other to make everyone corpse*** and I exuberantly pied Biff in the face every night whilst trying not to cringe at the Flux Capacitor. It was truly wonderful.
But what really made my Edinburgh experience was the people. Bearing in mind some of these guys I met for the first time in June (and some of them only in Oxford 2 weeks ago) I was trepidatious about spending two weeks constantly in their company and sharing a house with them and introducing them to Morning Jenni (Aka Sleepy Monster). Now, I'm not sure why I was worried at all. These are all LIGHT ENTERTAINERS, they're my people-the ones that properly get me, no questions asked. I have laughed so much over the last fortnight that I've probably toned up my stomach muscles to a level they've never toned been before. There were so many completely awesome people there, such a mesh of personalities that you couldn't help not find your home. If you're reading this guys, thank you. You made my Fringe in so many different ways.
And now I'm back at home in the real world, which is dull and much less fun/giggly/jiggly and gives me very little incentive to get out of my pyjamas each day. It feels very weird to think that it is only a week ago tomorrow that it was opening night-this time last week I was in Edinburgh learning how to flyer and trying not to get lost and it's all gone so quickly. I won't be forgetting it in a long time though, because it was really really really awesome. Here's hoping it won't be my last Fringe adventure!

-Jenni-

P.S If I never hear 'The Power of Love' again, it'll be too soon. Just typing the words sets it off in my head, sigh.


*Yeah...so I managed to get it trapped between my train and its platform in Edinburgh by falling down the gap...don't do this folks, it's bloody and painful.
**Think how fun it was trying to say that when flyering
***For you non-theatrey people, corpsing is when someone breaks character and laughs on stage when they're not supposed to. Trying to make your co-stars do it whilst not doing it yourself is something of a talent. But of course, we're much too professional for that...*shifty eyes*