Fringe 2016: the final show, snorted dogs and owl collapse

I realise the whole Fringe diary kind of stopped. This is because I'd booked to attend more shows than that time the Queen snorted a load of Corgi dandruff and went HAM on Ticketmaster.

I also realise that my regular music readers have been starved of audio love, so to keep you going I've embedded a live session of A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld. It sounds nice.

Where was I? Oh yes. The last show. My fourth and final Hey Fat Roland! 40 Minutes Of Idiot got a full house. Someone even entered the room halfway through, looked at the number of people, thought "stuff this" and bogged off.

@FatRoland 💯 glad to hear u had a full house

— ｚａｃｈａｒｙ (@zach2504) August 7, 2016

While last year's show took a preview and four Fringe shows to really get off the mark, this year's show worked pretty instantly. There's a lot of content, and I'm much more attuned this year to laugh-points throughout.

The mixture of stupid cartoons (the sky picture with "pop-up" weather symbols), deliberate failures (the owl / pussycat paper collapse), actual spoken word content ("millions of dogs") and plain stupidity (the lyrics of Desiigner's Panda) seemed to work.

Indeed there's a LOT of content in this one, and my main struggle was to allow time for comedy moments to hang in the air. Like allowing time for the audience to giggle, or allowing a beat for a 'topper' comment, or giving space for a heckle? That. It's a good problem to have.

@FatRoland Great show again yesterday!

— David Wood (@fewtrem) August 8, 2016

Overall then, very pleased. I'm disappointed to have to finish after four shows, but I'm utterly grateful to Laughing Horse for the opportunity. I got fantastic audience reactions and twice the average audience attendance than last year. Brills.

Roll on next year, right? Bigger and better. And yes, I'm already writing next year's show in my head...

@FatRoland Bit of flyer-ing for you chum! Loved the show earlier #owlandpussycat pic.twitter.com/nCUYW4u4WR

— Mark Slater (@marksl8r) August 5, 2016

Fringe 2016: the gates of hell and/or one more show to go

My Fringe run is nearly over. You have one more chance to catch Hey Fat Roland! 40 Minutes Of Idiot: tomorrow at 11am-ish. After that, the gates of heaven shall close and we'll all be cast into the eternal fires of non-entertainment.

After a quieter second show (to very appreciative people), I'm chuffed as pants to say I've just had my biggest Fringe audience yet. They were laughy from the get-go, and I spent the following twenty minutes in a warm, cozy brain hammock I never wanted to leave.

At the time of writing, I've seen Sam Simmons, Simon Munnery, Cassie Atkinson, Loud Poets and thereminist Hypnotique. They were, in order, anarchic, lovely, hilarious, warm and ooooo.

The Red Arrows just flew past my window. Just afterwards, one of those fancy horse and carts just rode past with the feather hat fascinators that horses like to wear when they're feeling all gitty and showy-off.

Fringe 2016: a nod to myself

Written yesterday, posted today... 

I'm writing this in quiet gardens tucked away from a main run of bookshops and cafés. Seagulls are bullying the other birds in the sky above me. If they get into a fist fight, I'm outta here, mainly because of the birds-not-having-fists thing.

I've got half an hour until I see Sam Simmons, whose show last year won the Foster's Comedy Award. I bumped into him after seeing that show last year ("hey, front row guy!") and he was really flipping lovely.

The turnout to my first show was enough to fill the front half of my (larger) venue. A good size for the morning of preview day. I'm happy about that.

The show feels sketcher than last year, pinballing from one idea to another. More rattly but, looking at the audience response, no less funny. Fresher, p'haps.

There's one bit where I sneak in pictures from pieces rejected from the final show (dinosaurs written for Speak Easy, Spice Girls written for First Draft), not that the audience would know. A little nod to myself, that.

Fringe 2016: Yes I guess I'll keep a diary I suppose

I'm at the Edinburgh Fringe so I thought I'd keep a diary. Why not? Actually there are loads of reasons why not. Let's just press on, shall we?

It's the eve of my first show and I've just done a load of re-editing. I'm much happier now with the running order. In fact, I'm excited. One of my props is a hand-made record in a record sleeve and it's soooo cute.

I spent much of today traipsing around venues putting posters up - or being told I can't put posters up. Big thanks to Beach Hunks Jack for spurring me on and getting wallpaper paste all over my hands. Go see their show.

When I was flyering today, one chap doffed his cap to me and a coach driver gave me the thumbs up. As if to say good luck for the long performance month ahead of you.

If only they knew. I'm only doing four dates. By the time you read this, you may well have missed one of them. Check here for Hey Fat Roland details - or search 'hey idiot' on the Fringe app.