Mrs Fringereview Blogs Day 4: Fake it til you make it?
Ah Edinburgh…..where the cobbled streets glisten with a rain so wet it makes you forget the feeling of dry.
My clothes and bags from yesterday’s truly drenched day are still drying painfully slowly on the rattling radiators in this old high ceiling flat. I had forgotten how wet it can be when out for the day seeing back to back shows. But it’s something wonderful in itself. We need this rain as much as we need sunshine.
Which takes me on neatly (and cheesily) on to the vulnerability of putting on an Edinburgh show; the highs and lows of empty and full seats, good and bad reviews, performances that sparkle in the flow and others when it’s just a day to write off and crawl back under the duvet away from. I saw Scott Gibson last night, not to review but just for my treat. I have heard a lot about him and I wasn’t disappointed. He brought up bold, honest and open hearted personal experiences of mental health. He laid on the table the shocking issue around depression and suicide being the highest in Scotland; 3/4 of these are men. He talks openly in his show about his own experience and how it has probably been the hardest thing in his life to talk about it on stage, but he knows it’s vital. He also, simply and succinctly, points out that we are in the darkest time of humanity in terms of social media and what it is doing to us all. That we will only realise in years to come the damage it does to us all.
I was imagining last night what it might feel like to have a show on up here and watch other performers blurbs and reviews and instagram stories and how easy it might be to join that maelstrom and spin your own fake news of success. Or how delicate that tightrope of despair is and how a bad review or rows of empty seats day after day could start to chip at confidence and motivation.
Go gently and take care and try not to believe everyone’s hype and spin. If the work has passion at its heart, keep swimming through the tears (and the edinburgh rain), and just trust.
