EDINBURGH FRINGE- 24th AUGUST 2015

MONDAY 24TH AUGUST

NO SHOW

In addition to my solo stand up show, “The Gospel According to Stephen”, I am also performing in another show at the EdinburghFringe, “Routines” with Dana Alexander, Will Mars and Matt Roper. 

This show is the brain child of Will Mars. It lies somewhere between stand-up, improv and theatre. It is a show within a show. There is a stand up gig with compere and three acts run along fairly conventional lines. But the show also features the green room, where the audience get a peak at the goings on back stage. The dialogue for the green room scene is largely ad-libbed and often refers to events unfolding in the gig, references to actual audience members, reviewers that are in the day etc. There are also “freeze frame” moments, where regular time is suspended and a moment-in-time is drawn out. E.g. as the compere and other comedian cross on stage they may have a momentary exchange of words, this moment can be stretched out in this show to ten and twenty seconds. 

I have been enjoying “Routines” immensely and am having a ball working with the other acts. It also provides an opportunity to stretch myself performance wise, to display different skills and to drum up publicity for my solo show. I always exit flyer "Routines" for my solo show. 

Routines is being performed at a Laughing Horse Free Fringe Venue; my Solo Show is being performed at the PBH Free Fringe venue. This contravenes PBH terms and conditions. PBH insist that if you play their Free Fringe you don’t perform at any other Free Fringe venues. Laughing Horse Free Fringe has no such embargo on playing PBH venues. Neither do Freestival nor Bob Slayers “Heroes of the Fringe” nor do the paid venues. 

Routines finishes at 4.45pm. After we exit flyer, we then have to reset the room for the next show which includes re-arranging all the chairs. We finish this by about 5.00pm and exit into the Three Sisters Court Yard where we chat/debrief for about 15 minutes. At around 5.15 the cast of Routines and I leave the three sisters to head to my flat for diner. 

The Event

As we are walking, I switch on my phone. A text message appears from Peter Buckley Hill timed 3.51pm, this is during "Routines".

Hello Stephen. I have in my hand a flier for a Laughing Horse show with your name and face on it, for a full run. Can you please explain? Thank you. PBH. 

Almost immediately, a second text comes through from PBH times at 

Hello Stephen. I have had no reply to my previous text message. It is clear from the evidence that you have broken the Free Fringe Ethos and Conditions by being a permanent and billed member of a Laughing Horse show. Your Free Fringe show is therefore terminated with immediate effect. 

Regards

PBH

People around me start getting very annoyed on my behalf but I remain strangely calm. I have to think through my options. PBH is an implaccable kind of a guy and I don’t think he will change his mind. I will have to start making alternative Fringe arrangements. There is a eye of the storm quality to all of this. I need to find a new venue. Alter the flyers and posters. Get some publicity. 

Word spreads fast. Alex Petty calls to offer me a slot at Laughing Horse. John Campbell asks for an interview for his blog. I speak to Bruce Dessau. There are messages of support, messages of what the fuck? I put a notice on facebook.  A discussion rages on facebook as to the rights and wrongs of the thing. 

I phone the venue to see what's what. It is already a fait accompli. The venue staff have been called by the pub owner to instruct them not to let me perform.

I turn up at the Canons’Gait for my allotted slot. I am not sure why I do this. I tell myself it is to apologise to any audience members who have turned up. I hope I’ll bump into to PBH so I can have a chat with him/ argument in person. I want to thank the staff. But perhaps it is just force of habit or maybe I'm hoping it's not true. There are a few audience members still milling around. I apologise for their wasted journey. I try to explain why I have been kicked out the venue. They seem perplexed. I enter the venue. Is PBH there? Will this be a showdown? Or a polite chat? He is not there. A chain is across the entrance to my venue. The chain is routinely used to close the room during performances but tonight it has “Show Cancelled” sign attached to the chain. The chain takes on an extra potency. 

I walk into the bar. There are four of five customers in there. I approach the bar to speak to the bar staff. I want to thank them but there is a lot of not meeting my eyes. It is not just embarrassment it's a though I am a sex offender who has just moved into the neighbourhood and I’m not making much headway of the pleasantries. I don’t know what they’ve been told? But I get the impression they think I have done something heinous. The only experience I can liken it to was the time I stole a forklift truck at a summer job factory and the management was a mixture of disappointed/angry/disgusted/embarrassed/ashamed. 

Come on guys. It is not like I’ve killed somebody. 

This is a particular low point and the only moment where things really get me down. I enjoyed a good relationship with the bar staff and knew many of them from last year when I played the same venue. I have always made a point of getting on with the bar staff. The performance space has its own bar which is manned throughout my show. Therefore there is always one member of staff present throughout the whole performance. They watch many shows throughout the run and are good at giving feedback. Several of the bar staff are also performers so their input is always worth listening to. 

I leave the Canon’s Gait and wander aimlessly for a bit. I never knew how adrift it felt to not have a show at the Edinburgh festival. Sometimes acts who are having a year off from Edinburgh arrive in Edinburgh for a few days and always say how much they are loving not having to do a show; it must be hell. 

A Solution

I decide to speak to Bob Slayer. I go to Bob’s Comedy Bus. Bob is having a snooze on the lower deck. He wakes up. 

“Beer, Stephen?” 

“Yes, why not Bob?” 

Bob opens a bottle of Badger. “that’ll be £4 please Stephen.” 

“Sorry, I don’t have any money.” 

“Why did you order a beer then?” 

“I thought you were giving me a drink for free” 

“Why would you think that? I’m running a bar!” 

“I thought you were being nice to me?” 

“Why would I be nice to you Stephen?”  

Good point Bob.“Because I was kicked out of your venue”

“Why have I been kicked out of my PBH venue?” 

And this is how Bob Slayer offers me a slot at Bob’s Heroes of the Fringe. I am now playing The Hive at 10.10pm on weekdays but I still need to find a venue for the weekend. I feel restless with no show tonight. A load of adrenalin and nowhere to go. I often fantasise about a night off. What I would do, what I would see. The reality is not so good. All this energy and nowhere to go. 

The Result

Laughing Horse, Freestival and Bob Slayer all came through with offers of venues. 

From comedians there were kind of three schools of thought. 

1. You have been treated outrageously. This is a ridiculous rule. 
2. You did break the rules but the punishment seems excessive, particularly in the last week of the fringe. This is counterproductive.
3. You broke the rules. What did you expect? Of course PBH was right to throw you out.

I found people to be very kind and utterly unpredictable in their opinion. 

Many people got in touch to express support or offer their own stories of clashes with PBH. Some people told me frankly that I was wrong. But everybody was unfailingly polite and courteous about it.

I received both support and criticism from unusual places: There were self-confessed rebels who were quick to tell me that rules are rules. Other, apparently more conservative figures, were wholeheartedly behind me. Neither did the support necessarily split into predictable camps. I had very strong support from some PBH people and criticism from others outside the PBH organisation. I also had assistance from people who thought I was the architect of my own downfall but who wanted to help me nonetheless. I met some people who were frightened to express their real opinion in public lest they damage their future bookability with PBH.  

Overall I experienced a greater sense of camaraderie than at any other time in stand up. 

Some thoughts: PBH has done a great service to comedy in setting up the free fringe. The free fringe was set up to allow artists to take back control of their careers. If they are now hidebound by restrictive practices then it is not in artists interests. This rule of exclusivity does not serve artists and needs to be scrapped. 

The feud between PBH and other branches of the free fringe is utterly ridiculous and is of no interest to the public and relatively few performers. In any case this feud is a one way street and is not reciprocated by Laughing Horse, Bob Slayer or Freestival. 

Without getting into the rights and wrongs of incidents like mine or Cowgatehead, these incidents create an impression of amateurism on the free fringe and damage the overall free fringe movement. Again, regardless of the rights and wrongs, these incidents have been bad PR for PBH free fringe.