Fringe Benefits

August at last! my favourite Summer month has finally arrived. Which can only mean one thing - it's that time of year when I start telling people that I'm going to spend part of my forthcoming Summer break at the Edinburgh Fringe with my one man show. Not that I actually do go to the Fringe, of course, but it's surprising how gullible some people can be. That's the beauty of the Edinburgh Fringe - everybody knows that just about anybody can and does go there, performing in pubs, cellars, even public toilets. Anything can become a venue, anybody can be a performer for a few days. Indeed, I have encountered a fellow resident of Crapchester who performed his stand-up comedy act there a couple of years ago. Having subsequently been forced to sit through part of said act as part of a captive audience in the lounge bar of the 'Ruptured Badger', the people of Edinburgh have my deepest sympathies. I can only assume his Fringe venue was a broom cupboard, as it would have been the only place he would have had a hope of selling out.

But back to my fictional one man show - what should I claim that it is about this year? The secret of selling this lie to the unwary is having a supposed show that actually sounds plausible. It's no good saying that you are doing a one man show depicting the life of Fatty Arbuckle, in which you play all the parts with a series of quick changes, for instance. It just sounds too contrived from the outset. Ideally, it should, in some way, be related to your work or some unusual life experience you've had. Such things are fertile ground for Fringe shows and many performers actually do use such a format, which will give your fictional show a feeling of veracity. Unfortunately, my work is too dull for this approach and nothing unusual ever happens to me. Which leaves The Sleaze as a possible basis for a one man show. Maybe I'll claim that I'm doing a show based on a story from the site - I Was a Sex Pest From Outer Space, perhaps? It sounds like the sort of thing you could spin a performance around. Maybe I'll go with that for my entirely non-existent Edinburgh Fringe show.