Blog 20.16 #18: The EdFringe Hiya

The day after Edinburgh Fringe was made for unpacking, washing, eating and powering through Stranger Things like a Normal Human Being.

I took the show UP THE NERD PUNKS 2, a sequel to Up The Nerd Punks last year.  I don’t know quite why a sequel seemed to fit.  It obviously suits the nerdiness of film and game sequels, but I felt there was more to say on the subject.

The show began as exploring what it means to ‘battle’, in the sense the inspiration, whether you are a villain or a hero, when two ideologies clash etc.  But as the world has increasingly become tense with racism and nationalism, the show became about drawing lines in the sand.  Not exploring the fight, but committing to the fight.  It hard for me, despite my Anarcho-Tendencies (not a crust band) I’ve always liberally acknowledged everyone has their own opinions and backgrounds.  This is true, but as the world feels edging closer to a darker 1932-esque fascism, there’s less requirement for introspection and more need for action.

I started off with audience hovering around 6, but my final show (admittedly a Saturday) ended with a rammed room of 30.  I did about 2-3 hours flyering a day, and got to hang out with poets from across the UK all lovely people.  I didn’t get to hang out with as many people as I’d like. 

The curse of the Fringe is the “Hiya!” as you pass someone in the street, or it is for me.  I put flyering, show, seeing shows and rest as priority, and seeing people seems to slip away.  For that, I am sorry to people I didn’t get to see, but I guess it reinforces everyone does Edinburgh differently.  I guess that's my battle every year to simply hang, and actually, in retrospect, without realising it, thatw as a central part of Up The Nerd Punks 2.

I wish the Fringe could accommodate for people not able to spend hours in bars spending money on booze to have a place to hang out.  If there is such a space, let me know.

Thanks so much to everyone who came to the show, my 11 guests over the 10 shows and general smiley friends.  Much love xxx (angry scrawny punk love)

This was my 3^rd year taking up a show, and I was racking my brains as to how I approached it in 2012 with Letter To The Man (from the boy).  Every time I return, I learn about a new venue, café, takeaway, bus route or method of flyering.  I always see Edinburgh as a way to raise my game.

So what have I learnt from this EdFringe which I didn’t know before:

·         You can always tweak your show.  Don’t be afraid to keep teasing with it, that’s the specialty of doing so many shows back-to-back.

·         The size of an audience doesn’t always reflect how loud they react.

·         The Free Fringe people are lovely.  They have to be.  When you flyer next to them, exit flyer them and guest with them everyone has to support each other.  I don’t mean be friendly with each other, I really do mean support each other, whether propping up at a bar or propping up that keenness.

So UP THE NERD PUNKS will return for the 3^rd, and probably final, instalment.  I will make the branding around this less nerdy, and the show less pop culture heavy so it’s more universal.  I want to explore the origins of punk, and part of activism, with the history of sci-fi and fantasy and how punk culture and nerd culture might just help us save.  It’s the end of the world, the destruction of all life, the apocalypse.   We need to travel in time.  We need to be the Kitty Pryde, Terminator, Doc Brown.  We need to save the future.  We need to save the world from…Bromaggeddon. 

Where we’re going, we don’t need bros.