Yesterday evening I met Mr S Hewitt at Paddington Station to take Hey Hey 16K back out on the road again. For LO! we were heading for READING and The Reading Fringe, where we were due to perform as part of its second day.
We found our way through Reading very easily (thank heavens for Streetview - how did EXIST before we could have a pre-wander through new places?) to find TWO surprising things about our venue, The Purple Turtle. Firstly, it had a range of ALES (i was expecting NONE) and secondly it was EMPTY! We sat around for a while and then one of the Fringe organisers came and said hello. Like everyone else we were to meet she was very enthusiastic and friendly and very much knew what she was doing, which was ACE. She also took our picture for The Record. Naturally Steve and I were very shy and did not in any way POSE like MAD.
We dropped our stuff off downstairs in the Performance Area, said hello to a TONNE more lovely people, and then popped outside ... where we discovered that the front of the pub was empty but the back was PACKED! We had a pint and went back in to find an actual AUDIENCE had arrived - it was showtime!
And lo! The show was GOOD! As ever it was a good job I did the "There will be mistakes" speech at the start because CRIKEY there totally were but it made the whole thing ROLL along, and I realised that the lack of an incredibly complicated plot this time meant that it was MUCH easier to mess around more and make REMARKS to the audience - I feel that this may become more and more of a THING as the show goes on!
Afterwards everyone appeared very happy, grinning while accepting badges and Dinosaur Planet CDs - indeed, a couple of people said they already HAD a copy! We thanked the organisers THOROUGHLY (they really were EXTREMELY good) and headed back to Reading Station (NOTE to Reading Station: you are not an airport, BEHAVE) where we had a pasty each before our train arrived. As we sat there it really felt like this was the final big run up to Edinburgh, and I found myself EXCITED at the prospect of larking about doing this show every day. It's going to be GRATE!
