I want to tell the stories of my August. Throughout August I was working at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a month-long festival of art and theatre and performance. More specifically, I was flyering for a group of comedians located around one particular Square called St Andrew’s Square. Throughout the Fringe I must have flyered for at least 10 different comedians, but 5 really stood out to me, and I want to tell you a story of them.
John Pendal
John was lovely. John was warm, and well-mannered, and sweet, and enjoyable to be around. John was an enthusiast of leather. After growing up in a secular Christian household (like me) and loving the TV show Doctor Who (like me) and having a ginger beard (like me) and studying Civil Engineering (like me), John realised that he was less of a tie-on-a-Sunday kind of guy, and more like a collar-and-legging-on-a-Saturday-night kind of guy.
And so this smiling and engaging man told me (and the rest of his audience when he repeated it in his show later on) his story, how he found himself and lived a life involving his exploration and eventual celebration of his inner kink. His show was wonderful, but this isn’t a blog about shows. His story was real, and I really enjoyed knowing him. He became my own personal byword for ‘nice’ throughout the Fringe, a smile attached to a great person.
Lorcan & Emmet
I’m going to be a little stereotypical here. Irish people make the best comedians. Lorcan and Emmet made up a comedy duo called Totally Wired and their story involves laughing. So be warned. I saw their show – in fact the only comedy show I saw without the intention of flyering for them afterwards. A quirk of the audience and of my own desperate desire to entertain meant that I was sitting on the front row. A word of advice. If you don’t enjoy being engaged by the act, don’t sit on the front row. I love it, so I had the time of my life as they got me to sing, to hold a baby, to shout out words and a lot more. I left, shook their hand, thanked them both and went to work.
Where I met them again, the next day, handing out flyers (and Kinder Eggs) themselves. They were ridiculously engaged with their business, chatting to people. Emmet slipped guilefully from impressionist to deadpan punner, quick-witted and comically adept. Lorcan was incredibly funny, but just as importantly he laughed a lot. He was appreciative, not only of his own jokes and those of Emmet, but also to those of people willing to engage. I sat down with them both on a rainy day before my shift and talked and chatted and laughed and made them laugh. I got a sense of enjoyment from them both – there wasn’t anything else on their mind, they weren’t laughing dutifully; they were glad to be there.
Bronston Jones
Bronston was the comedian that perhaps I interacted with the most. I flyered for 2 of his shows, one of which, Lolympics, was the most fun I’d ever had when flyering. Bronston, the tall American comedian, was tireless in his optimism and his encouragement of the flyerers.
(As a brief aside, I’m going to talk about myself now. I enjoyed flyering, and as a result I think I was quite good at it. The same drive to find stories in everyone shows itself when trying to encourage people into seeing something I love, and because of that it was easy to flyer for the comedians I liked. Bronston was brilliant at hearing new flyering ideas and giving feedback on them, something I really appreciated.)
Bronston’s love of his art was almost challenging in its own way. To stand across the square and watch him ‘carpet-bomb the tables’ (an expression we coined to mean ’go and place a flyer on each table, for the people sitting there to read at their leisure.’ Not my preferred way of flyering; I like interaction and engagement, but effective nonetheless) would always challenge me to stand up straighter, be a little more cheery, and go and greet the next passers-by with a smile.
I ended my month with a wrap party; an open bar where the comedians, flyering team and box office staff would go and, theoretically, get as drunk as lords. The open bar encouraged this, and it was with my usual awkwardness and chagrin that I found myself sober as an upright vicar in a room full of slurring happy people. Then Bronston showed up, lodged firmly in the ‘pissed a skunk’ category and proceeded to make me laugh with his effusiveness, his enthusiasm and his... just his happiness. Bronston was a nice chap.
Martin Mor
These are all people; these are all stories. There is no best, there is no wrong answer, there is no favourites with a story. That being said, Martin Mor is a man I look up to tremendously. Not only for his history – working in a circus before switching to comedy, and employing both in liberal measures, but also for his work ethic and his outlook on life.
I don’t think I’m amiss calling him the busiest man on the Fringe – with 2 kids’ shows, 2 daily comedy shows and frequent appearances on various other shows throughout the month, he was driven to the point of fanaticism, a trait which I always find engaging even for its sheer involvement. For a week or two, I was swept along in his trail, enjoying watching the shows that I’d just flyered for.
Martin is a big bloke – I know, because I used to describe him to the punters as a ‘big bustling bearded bear of an Irishman’ – an alliteration which generally got a chuckle or one of those intakes of breath which say ‘I recognise your humour and acknowledge it as fairly funny’. Martin climbs mountains – I know, because his show this year was about climbing Everest. Martin is a juggler – I know, because he taught me a juggling trick which I didn’t have time to learn properly. Martin is an entertainer – I know, because I watched him perform in his kids shows, his comedy shows and his compare-ing of shows. Martin is a particular role model of mine.
That’s just a few of the fantastic people I met at the Fringe this year. I’ll be writing about more of them in the next few weeks; I didn’t find time to eat proper meals during August, let alone write much, so I’m catching up now. Thanks for reading
John Pendal
John was lovely. John was warm, and well-mannered, and sweet, and enjoyable to be around. John was an enthusiast of leather. After growing up in a secular Christian household (like me) and loving the TV show Doctor Who (like me) and having a ginger beard (like me) and studying Civil Engineering (like me), John realised that he was less of a tie-on-a-Sunday kind of guy, and more like a collar-and-legging-on-a-Saturday-night kind of guy.
And so this smiling and engaging man told me (and the rest of his audience when he repeated it in his show later on) his story, how he found himself and lived a life involving his exploration and eventual celebration of his inner kink. His show was wonderful, but this isn’t a blog about shows. His story was real, and I really enjoyed knowing him. He became my own personal byword for ‘nice’ throughout the Fringe, a smile attached to a great person.
Lorcan & Emmet
I’m going to be a little stereotypical here. Irish people make the best comedians. Lorcan and Emmet made up a comedy duo called Totally Wired and their story involves laughing. So be warned. I saw their show – in fact the only comedy show I saw without the intention of flyering for them afterwards. A quirk of the audience and of my own desperate desire to entertain meant that I was sitting on the front row. A word of advice. If you don’t enjoy being engaged by the act, don’t sit on the front row. I love it, so I had the time of my life as they got me to sing, to hold a baby, to shout out words and a lot more. I left, shook their hand, thanked them both and went to work.
Where I met them again, the next day, handing out flyers (and Kinder Eggs) themselves. They were ridiculously engaged with their business, chatting to people. Emmet slipped guilefully from impressionist to deadpan punner, quick-witted and comically adept. Lorcan was incredibly funny, but just as importantly he laughed a lot. He was appreciative, not only of his own jokes and those of Emmet, but also to those of people willing to engage. I sat down with them both on a rainy day before my shift and talked and chatted and laughed and made them laugh. I got a sense of enjoyment from them both – there wasn’t anything else on their mind, they weren’t laughing dutifully; they were glad to be there.
Bronston Jones
Bronston was the comedian that perhaps I interacted with the most. I flyered for 2 of his shows, one of which, Lolympics, was the most fun I’d ever had when flyering. Bronston, the tall American comedian, was tireless in his optimism and his encouragement of the flyerers.
(As a brief aside, I’m going to talk about myself now. I enjoyed flyering, and as a result I think I was quite good at it. The same drive to find stories in everyone shows itself when trying to encourage people into seeing something I love, and because of that it was easy to flyer for the comedians I liked. Bronston was brilliant at hearing new flyering ideas and giving feedback on them, something I really appreciated.)
Bronston’s love of his art was almost challenging in its own way. To stand across the square and watch him ‘carpet-bomb the tables’ (an expression we coined to mean ’go and place a flyer on each table, for the people sitting there to read at their leisure.’ Not my preferred way of flyering; I like interaction and engagement, but effective nonetheless) would always challenge me to stand up straighter, be a little more cheery, and go and greet the next passers-by with a smile.
I ended my month with a wrap party; an open bar where the comedians, flyering team and box office staff would go and, theoretically, get as drunk as lords. The open bar encouraged this, and it was with my usual awkwardness and chagrin that I found myself sober as an upright vicar in a room full of slurring happy people. Then Bronston showed up, lodged firmly in the ‘pissed a skunk’ category and proceeded to make me laugh with his effusiveness, his enthusiasm and his... just his happiness. Bronston was a nice chap.
Martin Mor
These are all people; these are all stories. There is no best, there is no wrong answer, there is no favourites with a story. That being said, Martin Mor is a man I look up to tremendously. Not only for his history – working in a circus before switching to comedy, and employing both in liberal measures, but also for his work ethic and his outlook on life.
I don’t think I’m amiss calling him the busiest man on the Fringe – with 2 kids’ shows, 2 daily comedy shows and frequent appearances on various other shows throughout the month, he was driven to the point of fanaticism, a trait which I always find engaging even for its sheer involvement. For a week or two, I was swept along in his trail, enjoying watching the shows that I’d just flyered for.
Martin is a big bloke – I know, because I used to describe him to the punters as a ‘big bustling bearded bear of an Irishman’ – an alliteration which generally got a chuckle or one of those intakes of breath which say ‘I recognise your humour and acknowledge it as fairly funny’. Martin climbs mountains – I know, because his show this year was about climbing Everest. Martin is a juggler – I know, because he taught me a juggling trick which I didn’t have time to learn properly. Martin is an entertainer – I know, because I watched him perform in his kids shows, his comedy shows and his compare-ing of shows. Martin is a particular role model of mine.
That’s just a few of the fantastic people I met at the Fringe this year. I’ll be writing about more of them in the next few weeks; I didn’t find time to eat proper meals during August, let alone write much, so I’m catching up now. Thanks for reading