Can any self-respecting stand-up survive the summer without trial by fire on the Royal Mile?
‘It’s lots of London performers leaving London in the hope of impressing media types from London! Why don’t they do it… in London?’ This has been a common yelp from comics for years. Realising they’ll be selling their fillings to pay off their debts to the fine upstanding Scottish slum landlords of Edinburgh. I have realised that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a habit, like heroin or crosswords. I have decided that habit must be broken. For the first time in ten years, for the whole of August, I will be able to pick up any newspaper without asking someone to rip out the arts section, on the very slight chance there is a review. I will also be able to leave a bar at 2am without a load of comedians saying, ‘Hey, that’s a bit early. It’s not even dawn yet. Why not come with us and weep near the bins as the sun rises?’ I have not been able to go totally cold turkey, I have constructed a withdrawal patch made of playing every single other UK festival instead – from the Dartington Litera
