Alex

They are both called Alex. She is German, tall and swaggering, with tattoos curling across her skin. She wears aviator sunglasses and smokes languidly, more Danny than Sandy. He is Greek, with shining green eyes and lurid orange shorts. His smile is bright and quick, and he speaks softly to the small boy on the boat who is too shy to look at the sea.

It is Alex’s last day in Crete, and her last trip out on the boat.

We punters, boxy in our life jackets, sit on the hot cushioned sides of the boat, smiling tentatively at one another. Alex and Alex leap around the boat, casually rolling up the anchor and performing safety checks: all confidence, cigarettes and dirty laughs.

As it is Alex’s last day she will drive the boat, so she takes her place astride the middle seat and lightly holds the steering wheel with both hands. Her wetsuit is rolled down to her waist, her soaked blonde ponytail drips down her back. Alex sits behind her, soft belly folding over his orange shorts. He places his hands fleetingly on her hips, before resting them on his own legs, turning to smile at the shy boy, who clings worriedly to his mother.

Alex starts the engine, and the boat gathers speed. The wind dashes our hair and the shy boy begins to sit up straighter. The gleam of the water reflects on his face as he turns to his mother in surprise and delight.
Alex parks the boat in a secluded cave, near a rocky outcrop and a not-quite-hidden nudist beach. One by one we snap on masks and snorkels, slip flippers on feet and tip backwards off the side of the boat. We glide through the water on borrowed grace, pirouetting in the water like the ballerinas we could never be, swimming among snippets of fish and diving down towards grimacing underwater caves. Alex silently shows us a starfish on the ocean bed, his orange shorts luminous in the clear water.

An hour later we clamber back aboard, ungainly in flippers and snot. Alex has removed her aviators and is smoking, her make-up smudged eyes squinting at a point just above our heads. Our skin dries and becomes salt tight. Alex smiles his bright smile at the shy boy, asking him gently if he enjoyed his snorkelling. The boy nods, his hair sticking out and eyes shining, grinning widely at Alex, then his mother, then the rest of us.

Alex takes the helm once again and we launch back towards the horizon and the promise of more coves, and a rest stop in a leafy taverna for orange juice, cake and glass jugs of black coffee. The afternoon stretches in front of us with the relaxed resilience of youth. Alex closes her eyes, leaning back on the boat, face tilted towards the high sun. When she opens them again they catch on Alex’s green gaze.

As the afternoon begins to fade we take our places back on the sides of the boat, casually now, wearing our afternoon of experience easily. We dangle arms and legs into the water as we begin to speed and it begins to froth. We approach the beach, slow, then stop. Swimmers in the shallows turn to watch us anchor and slide one by one into the surf, holding our bags over our heads as we walk towards the shore and the hotel.

Later, after showers and goodbyes, the two of us sip large beers in the hotel beach bar. The day’s sun is trapped beneath our skin. The sea and sky shine metallic turquoise and luminous pink.

Over my beer I look out onto the mirror sea, and search out our boat, anchored and still. Two figures, one in a pair of orange shorts, the other with gleaming hair, are climbing aboard. They stand face to face, the setting sun barely squeezing through the gap between their bodies. They sit down, one in front of the other, at the steering wheel. I don’t hear the engine, but the water parts as the boat slides forwards. They pick up speed and soon the sea is churning in their wake as they circle the bay once and glide off around the curve of the headland.

Back at the bar the music pulses. Men with folded faces and lifelong tans stand in Speedos, sharing watermelon from a washing up tub. A tiny child dances a naked jig on the sand, and the sun slips into the sea.

EDINBURGH R GO

Yesterday we were on the motorway, heading North in a hire van made of sellotape and hope. The skies widened and the horizons suddenly got all massive. As the road stretched out ahead all the signs started to say things like “Carlisle, Penrith, SCOTLAND.”

It’s that time of year: all roads lead to Edinburgh.

On Sunday night I lay in the bath, gin and tonic in hand, studying my feet.

Sorry, feet, I thought. Look at you, all innocent, blissfully unaware that over the next month I will force you to do the famous all-weather fringe trudge as I flyer for, and then perform, two shows a day. Enjoy the warm water and elevation while you can, feet. You’re going to be working like two small nail varnished dogs. Mostly in the flip-flops of optimism.

**********************

On Saturday morning I was in Hackney, drinking a coffee and being desperately trendy. My sister Sophie lives in a converted boxing gym in Homerton, and underneath is a warehouse space that someone has just made into a café: all mismatched furniture, perfect flat whites and lightbulbs where you can see the filaments. Sophie, Ben and I were sitting reading our books and eating croissants with things in. Oh, this is lovely, I thought. Like a little holiday.

I was sort of desperately relieved. The night before I'd performed my new solo show, Dirty Old River, at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green and it had gone kind of pretty well. Not perfect. I definitely could've done it better if I had thought to not sweat so much my fingers slid all over the cello.

Just before the show I was sitting in my dressing room (a boardroom with a mirror and a used flip chart in the corner).

I felt the familiar stabbing, low nerves.

Oh God. I don’t think I can do this. I can’t remember loads of it and the bits I do remember are shit.

I started pawing at my chair.

Is there an eject button on this thing?

In the name of distraction, I began leafing through the flip chart. TEAMWORK, someone had written on one of the pages of the flip chart. There were some dots around it, where someone had emphatically stabbed at the paper, no doubt making some excellently-crafted point whilst ruining a perfectly good board marker.

I miss my teams, I thought.

Of course, I got over the nerves, and loved doing Dirty Old River. People seemed to enjoy it right back. I got this excellent feedback:

as well as becoming InStyle Magazine’s latest girl crush. (Hurray! I am definitely going to make myself a badge.) (I'm not even joking. This may be the best thing that's ever happened to me.)


In Edinburgh, though, I’m with my teams.

Eggs Collective: Eggs Collective Get A Round

For five weeks we snuck into our lives and our friendships and picked at the difficult, brilliant bits. We chucked it all in, threw all of our petty triumphs and grand disappointments into the mix, messed about with it all, drank some wine and came out with a show. We worked with a man called Mark, who Really Got It, and who we quickly realized we could be totally ourselves with. (Often in a borderline inappropriate, but totally excellent way.)

One week we stayed in London in a tiny flat, every night watching Made In Chelsea and eating enormous jacket potatoes, or sitting in bars drinking red wine, resolutely ignoring the football. Or watching plays. We were working during the day at Camden People’s Theatre, a mere stone’s throw from the very last place I temped in London before I moved to Manchester five years ago.

(My twenty seven year old self would be pretty pleased with my thirty-two year old self, I thought. (She might tell her to stop whingeing about how tired she is, but apart from that she’d probably approve.) (Actually I think she might've thought she'd be wearing better clothes by now, and maybe have some kind of fashionable haircut.))

We did the final show at Royal Exchange in Manchester, which was the best thing ever because they have fridges in the dressing rooms, which we obviously immediately filled to the brim with post-show Prosecco (it was on offer). Just before the show started, Lowri and I waited behind the pillars, ready to go on. We both pressed our cheeks against the stone and stared at each other, wide-eyed in the half dark, listening to the audience take their seats. The first notes of the opening song oozed in, and the dry ice began to froth, ready for Sara’s entrance.

By contrast, at Latitude, we three stood outside the back of the Live Art Tent, sheened with sweat and Elnett. When those first bars played, we crawled through a little opening in the canvas, through the mud and onto the stage.

In Edinburgh we are performing at midnight every day, in a tiny free fringe venue called The Counting House Attic. If you come along we will feed you wine and love (be warned: you might ingest some Impulse bodyspray, but all in the name of art).

Geddes Loom: Prelude To A Number

When our friend Liz came to see a run though of Prelude To A Number, having seen Eggs Collective Get A Round the previous week, the first thing she said to me was “wow, you’re going to have a split personality in Edinburgh”. She’s not wrong, and I don’t just mean my terrifying mood swings.

After doing a run of the show back in early March we all stepped back from it and went, mmmm, like mechanics, but with fewer practical life skills. Something wasn’t right. Something was rattling weirdly. There wasn’t enough oil in the… Hang on, no, wait. I don’t know enough about cars to take this analogy any further.

Anyway. We didn’t have enough music in it. It felt all a bit too serious, somehow. Not enough ‘us’. Not enough of us as a band who play music together because we all like playing music and not enough of us as people who make jokes together because we like making jokes.

So, having been asked to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe by Northern Stage, we took it all apart and looked at the bits, deciding what should stay and what should go. I got a bit carried away with that bit, merrily lobbing the as many babies out as I could find in the bathwater. Let’s just do it all again! Let’s change all of it! Hurray for ruthlessness! See ya later, Ruth!

Luckily I was reined in, and now, even though we have lots of new bits (including loads more songs) we have a show that we really like, and that is a lot more ‘us’. It’s lovely to perform, I love telling the stories and playing the music, and being on stage with Ben and Dan.

We’re on at 14.50 everyday (not Sundays) at Kingshall (Northern Stage). If you come we will feed you music and love (be warned: you might ingest some maths, but all in the name of art).

**********************

We've arrived now. We're sitting in the Kings Hall as a team of Northern Stage champions whizz our set into the venue, and Dan does a series of complicated things with wires. My cello is set up, people are making endless notes to make sure that we can hop in and out of the space every day like pros. Eggs Collective arrive at the end of the week with suitcases packed to bursting with Blossom Hill and dreams.

I am excited! But a bit tired! I have already seen two people that I recognise but don't know well enough to talk to! I have been rained on!

EDINBURGH R GO!

I'm A Fool For April

This time twenty-nine years ago my first memory was made. I was nearly three, and I looked at my newborn sister through the wire mesh of the hospital cart she'd been placed in. She was small, pink and be-blanketed, and I distinctly remember wondering why they'd put my tiny new sister in a shopping trolley.

Today it's sunny, and she is far away, in London. Possibly later things will get out of control and she will find herself back in a shopping trolley, careening around the streets of Hackney embroiled in some kind of wild birthday jape. I choose to believe she might.

So, today it's sunny, and it's my sister's birthday, and I have had some good news. The sort of news that prompted me to jump up and down pump my fist in the manner of someone considerably sportier than I. The sort of news that's such a surprise and relief that I was left a bit shaky and giddy and hot.

(I don't know if I can tell you yet, but I'll tell you later. Over a pint, maybe. Fancy it?)

***********

I'm back in Manchester now, having been in Leeds off and on for some weeks working on It Burns It All Clean for West Yorkshire Playhouse's Transform Festival. Selina Thompson was the lead artist, with Sara and I working on it with her, developing our characters and pieces of performance. It is somewhere between an immersive theatre piece and an installation, and was out of the theatre in a secret location. Every show Sara and I would go and meet the audience at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, before snaking them through the streets of Leeds to start the show. It was a new experience for me having to hold a character throughout an immersive show, where the audience are part of the game. Some people are nervous, quietly obedient and a bit frightened, while others play up and get a bit naughty. Not totally unlike teaching, really. Particularly the part where you have to hold your face in a stern expression whilst actually finding the naughtiness pretty funny.

So far I have seen one review, which described me as "a woman so deranged she makes Pam from ‘The League of Gentlemen’ look sane". I suppose it's talking about my character, not me, but I might still get in on a t-shirt, or tattoo it on part of my body at the very least.

Transform was lovely, buzzy and exciting. We didn't get a chance to see any other work as we were doing up to four shows a day, but there were loads of people about. It felt a bit like Edinburgh, but with fewer cobbles and wearily angry Scots.

On Saturday night we also did two Eggs Collective sets at the late night show in the Playhouse. Lydia came up from London and Roxy came over from Manchester, so Sara and I finished our fourth show of It Burns It All Clean at about 10.30pm and dashed over to the Playhouse to get ready. Within the hour we were sitting on the bar, changed out of our futuristic power suits and into our Ladies Night gear, all stacked shoes, birds nest hair and spiderleg lashes. I belted out the Thong Song as I usually do, then an hour later we did another set, dancing with the crowd and hanging off people, instigating a massive love-in. "I bloody love you" I slurred into the face of slightly nervous-looking stranger. "I love you too" he replied. "I mean, you're terrifying, but I do love you."

Sara and I arrived back in Manchester yesterday afternoon, broken but happy.

************

It's sunny, and we've got the window open. People are sitting outside Kim by the Sea, the bar downstairs, drinking in the beer and the sunshine. We just heard the a big group clink glasses joyously, all cheering and there was even the odd "woo". Then a woman sighed happily "and on a Tuesday, too!".

***********

I'm starting to think about my new solo show, Dirty Old River. The first performance is on 24th May at The Lowry, then I'm performing it again on 25th July at Rich Mix in London as part of a triple bill.

It's going to be about loneliness, belonging and connection. It'll be a series of songs and stories, with me singing and telling stories and playing my cello. I'll use a loop pedal, but other than that it'll be low tech, quite intimate. More of a gig than a theatre show. Confessional, cabaret, I'm calling it. Hopefully it'll be quite funny and sad and weird and good. Just the usual aspirations, really.

I've been working on different ways of singing and playing cello, other than my usual old trick of doing some basic cello chords and singing over the top of them. I want to play around with it, so that sometimes voice accompanies cello, and sometimes they do a proper duet. It feels like it makes a lot of sense to go down this road, and I can't wait.

***********

Perhaps this is the summer starting. Maybe it's just April, and my sister's birthday, and it's summer. Every so often I remember my good news and have to shut my eyes for a moment, trying not to wonder whether it's the cruellest April Fool ever.

But the sun is out, the world is warm and all is good. And on a Tuesday, too!

How are you?

In Which I Refence Both YouTube And Snapchat Because I Am Hip

I've felt a bit stuck recently, when it comes to writing this blog. Oh God, I really know, it doesn't matter to anyone else, but it does kind of matter to me. Nearly ten years of pouring my hopes, hangovers and heartbreaks into this drab little corner of the internet and now I get all tangled as soon as I try and say anything. Suddenly everything sounds too self-promoting (probably) or not self-promoting enough (ridiculous) or something. Entitled, maybe. Or privileged. Or just plain old wank.

So, in a bid to rediscover something possibly lost, I'm copying that bastion of blogging eloquence, Belgian Waffle, and do some Down/Up lists - stuff that is bad, then stuff that is good. Ah, the age-old writing technique of listing some stuff and hoping for the best. Shakespeare probably definitely did something similar.

DOWN

- Being freelance is still weirdly terrifying. I definitely knew I would miss my beloved teaching job after I left it at Christmas, but I don't think I anticipated the peculiar vertigo that wakes me in the early morning vacuum, whispering mean things in my ears. Things about stupidity and risk and You Are Definitely Not A Proper Grown Up. Even when it's all alright, when I am working, the vertigo is still there. Going into school every week for three years, knowing colleagues well enough to have jokes and know their stories and families, knowing every single kid in school by name, having a place I usually sat in the staff room, all that was an anchor (it was lovely). It was fairly straightforward. A bell rang and I started. A bell rang and I went home. Now it feels all more muddy and complicated. Trying to juggle loads of projects at the same time, worrying about cash flow, trying to think about things simultaneously in the moment and in the future. Assuming the risk for everything: emotional and financial. It's scary. I hope it will just get easier as I get used to it, and I won't end up a husk of a human, wandering up to strangers in public places and screaming 'APPRAISE ME" into their baffled faces.

- The lamp post outside our new flat looks worryingly wobbly.

- Patronizing patronizers keep being patronizing about this "no make up selfie" thing. I keep seeing Facebook posts from various people being all, like, "ladies, yeah, what's the big deal about make up. Listen, you're beautiful as you are. Here's a pat on the head, now grow some self-esteem" and all manner of other stuff that also definitely isn't the point. If everyone who does the no make up selfie thing donates some money then, surely, it's a good thing? Isn't it? I don't get why people who it doesn't affect are cross about it.

- Seriously. That lamp post looks really, really wobbly. I'm no town planner*, but are they meant to do that?
*Or whoever is in charge of lamp posts.

- I'm awaiting decisions on two big Arts Council applications, one for my new solo show Dirty Old River and one for Eggs Collective's new show. It is a nail-biting state of affairs.

- We haven't decorated our new flat. Ben has gone off on tour today with Anthropoetry and I have been working away, so all we have so far are small squares of paint and good intentions smattering the walls. I live in hope that one day I will turn majestically into the sort of person who can do things like decorating, tiling, and arts/crafts. And baking! I would like to do some baking. But instead I am the sort of person that doesn't do any of those things, feels woefully inadequate, so goes off writes self-pityingly blog posts about it. Go team me.

UP

- There's a group of small children lined up outside the garden centre opposite. They are waiting in pairs, variously jumping up and down, swinging each others hands, dancing and being generally exceptionally giddy. They have their little fluorescent vests on and are poking excitedly at some daffodils. It is a Thursday lunchtime and they are on a school trip to the garden centre. Everything is A-OK. (They probably haven't noticed the ominous sway of the lamp post.)

- I think maybe I know why the vertigo is being mean to me in the night. Freelancing is hard, and I'm definitely a bit shy and scared of getting it wrong. In some ways I probably make the worst/most neurotic freelancer in the world. I hate using my phone unless it's to take selfies on Snapchat so that I can draw amusing glasses on my face or turn myself into a lion. I very much don't like not knowing what I am doing. I am, I have sadly realized, not cool enough to Go With The Flow about things. And this makes stuff a bit hard at the moment, when it's all a bit ricketty and new and uncertain. Maybe the fear is inevitable. It will probably get better.

And the actual work is really wonderful. I loved spending six weeks making Prelude to a Number. Being in new places and learning stuff. We were really pleased with the show, even though it possibly isn't quite there yet. And that's fine, because we'll work on it more and it will improve. (I wrote about it here, if you want to read about how that all went.) Now I'm working in Leeds on a piece called It Burns It All Clean for Transform Festival at West Yorkshire Playhouse. The lead artist is Selina Thompson, with Sara and I collaborating, but it's definitely Selina's piece. We're working in whatever way she needs us to. So it's nice, because we get to be part of the creative process without so much of the pressure, and learn about how someone else makes work.

And, at the risk of sounding like I'm attempting some kind of inspirational youtube video, I think that with every project I do I'm becoming a more confident writer and performer. I think the bit I love the most is when you're all in a room and the ideas are swinging around and everyone's buzzy and getting it. It feels a bit magical.

- The new flat is lovely. The one we had before was a one bedroom mezzanine, so it was kind of just one space for living, working, cooking and sleeping. If you wanted to strop off somewhere you had to go and sit in the bathroom and stare furiously at tiles. But this flat has two bedrooms, both of which are separate to the downstairs living space. This means stropping off can be done in the proper fashion! (There are probably other benefits as well.)

- It occurs to me that maybe lamp posts are meant to sway in the wind, like those buildings that are designed to withstand earthquakes by wobbling (bit of architectural engineering there for you, you're welcome). Maybe they're designed to be flexible, and it is in fact that flexibility that makes them ultimately more stable? Probably not, it's probably going to crash through my window and crush me while I am blogging about it. Oh well. I just thought it might make a good life lesson.

- The children have now been allowed into the garden centre and are tearing around like little streaks of yellow highlighter pen, occasionally stopping suddenly to stare intently at some greenery before launching off again, bumping wildly into one another and shrieking with joy.

- Spring waits around the corner. Up here in the northern hemisphere we're all nearly out of the dark. There is blossom on the trees and people have tentatively ditched their scarves. Yesterday I had a day off, so I met Aisling at lunchtime. We sat in the sun, sipping at our small glasses of cold white wine, pretending earnestly that it was summer. And, for the briefest of half hours, before the wind checked its calendar and picked up smartly, it worked.


P.S. THIS IS THE SORT OF THING I DO FOR FUN

Hangovers. CURED!

I can pinpoint the exact moment that Saturday night's mascara began to slide down its cheeks.

We'd been carousing for a few hours, celebrating the performance of Ben's show and Ro's imminent slip down to London. (It seems we are leaking Mancunians up here. Watch out South, the North is coming to flatten both your caps and your vowels.)

Ben, Dan and I (aka Geddes Loom) had been rehearsing all day, were extremely glad at the end of it to take a breath and a beer and head to meet our friends and see the show. We knew we had a busy day the next day, but could not be deterred in our party spirit. Moving to another bar after the theatre we all sat round a big table, talking, laughing and taking increasingly indulgent selfies with flattering filters.

At midnight my watch beeped, as it is inexplicably wont to do. I raised my head from my trough of white wine, vaguely surprised. A dour, tweedy part of my brain glanced up from its improving book and muttered something about early starts, but the larger part of my brain, sporting a garish Hawaiian shirt and a cap with beer cans attached to it, elbowed it hard.

An indeterminate amount of time later I was talking earnestly to someone about something important when Rachel and Dan appeared in the periphery of the table, bearing one large tray and two wicked grins.

"Shots!" they called, joyously.

"Hurray!" replied everyone, wonkily.

This, I should think, was where it all drifted. This, not the twelve drinks beforehand, was the reason for taxis slept in, chips cried over, love declared and QI squinted at.

The following day Dan, Ben and I reconvened to continue our rehearsals for that evening's inaugural Pen:Chant, which we were not only organizing but also hosting and performing at.

When Dan arrived we exchanged looks and he shook his head, slowly so as not to disturb the angry bats that had taken up residence therein.

"OK?" I said, squintily.

He took a deep breath as an answer, and we all made some more coffee.

But think of it! I kept reminding myself. We get to see Fi tonight! Fi who was our roommate in Edinburgh and who is excellent. And all we have to do is go to Three Minute Theatre, put on a show with two excellent acts and hang out with a tiny dog called Mandy. This, surely, is the best hangover cure in the world?

I tell you what, it really was.

There was no part of it that I felt stressed or unsure about. Unlike loads (most) of the things I've done this year I didn't even slightly wish that I would get a tiny bit hit by a car on the way so I would have an excuse not to go. It's a lovely place run by lovely people. Mandy the tiny dog is tiny. Tiny! Gina and John run the venue and they are lovely and generous.

Hannah in the Wars (Hannah, Fi and Rosie) were really epic and cool. Three fierce, serious, funny, talented women being great all in a row. (Also Rosie lent me her cello. I am very grateful to her for that, partly because her cello is nicer than mine.) Here they are:

Our other guest act was Jon Bennett, and he was brilliantly funny, as well as managing to be a little bit poignant as well. He did a shorter version of his show, Pretending Things Are A Cock, and we felt very pleased with ourselves for snagging such a good comedian for our first show. Ben and Dan had hung out with him when they swanned (swun?) off to Australia to do the Perth and Adelaide Fringe earlier this year. At first I was a tiny bit intimidated by him as he seemed a bit cool, but then, after talking to him, I realized he was normal and a bit weird, just like everyone else. Here he is:

We had four people on the open mic section (two women, two men) who were lovely, funny and thought-provoking. Our audience was made up of nice people who were attentive and clapped in the right places. They even didn't seem to actively mind when I made this joke:

Q: How do you make a duck into a soul singer?
A: Put it in the microphone until it's Bill Withers*

*This joke doesn't work written down because of the apostrophe. This is a grammar joke!

To be fair I was introducing Fi onto the stage to sing "Grandma's Hands" with Ben on beatbox and me on backing vocals. But I suppose to be fairer it is a terrible joke**.

**No it isn't. It's a great joke.

So we have discovered a great hangover cure! Put on a night, make terrible jokes, sing some songs. Play with a tiny dog called Mandy.

Here we all are together (I am holding Mandy):

(Next Pen:Chant is on Monday 9th December at Three Minute Theatre)

All Just A Game We're Doing

A few years ago I was locking my bike up on a dark, rain-grisled street in Manchester. The bike stand was the last one in a long row, and I was hurrying up, keen to get out of the wintery night. Suddenly I heard methodical dinging of bicycle bells and looked up to see a man, forty-ish and roundish with a dark coat and tattoos on his hands, walking along the row of locked up bikes and carefully ringing each bell in turn.

I paused and watched him. When he got to me stopped. "Um" he began, sheepishly. "Can I do yours as well? It's sort of... a game I'm doing."

I stood back. "Yeah, of course."

Ding. "Ta, love."

Ding. Ding. Ding. (fades)

***************

That story doesn't really relate to anything, I just couldn't work out how to start the first blog post I have done since I was in the midst of wrestling with the Edinburgh Fringe. Because obviously you've all been lying face down in darkened rooms weeping into your laptops, torn up by pain and loss, wondering why I have cruelly abandoned you.

We returned from Edinburgh and I did the annual wondering why I felt so bleak for two weeks, before coming out the other side of it and getting REMEMBER YOU ALWAYS FEEL HORRIBLE AFTER EDINBURGH tattooed on the insides of my eyelids. It makes sense to feel a bit weird after an entire month of not only performing alone for an hour a day, often with reviewers taking copious scritchy notes IN THE FRONT ROW, but also having to trudge about and sell the bloody thing as well. Towards the end of the month my flatmate Fi came to provide some much-needed solidarity and get rid of my millions and billions of remaining flyers. She was also exhausted, though, neither of us fit for much more than drinking lovely things and reminiscing about the good old days at the beginning of the festival when we were still young and able to construct sentences. "Do you want... shows?" I whispered, tearily proffering a flyer to a person. "Um... nice font, picture of a girl?" tried Fi.

The show itself went pretty well, with some good reviews and some circumspect ones. I began throughout the fringe to realize that really, I prefer the informality of a gig, I like to chat with people from the stage. The performances I saw that I related most to were the ones that had a smack of cabaret, and the best bits in my own show were the chatty, informal feeling ones. There was, in my show, a fair bit of the other kind of performance too, the fourth wall kind. It was a tough thing to realize halfway through that I didn't think it quite worked, but still have to get up and perform it for another seventeen days straight.

My favourite moment in Edinburgh was at the Tron Church. It is a glorious, weird and wonderful place at the end of the Royal Mile. A church with a stage, tables and a bar. Cavernous and stained-glassed, with acoustics that make your ears stand on end. We did a few Geddes Loom gigs there, but I had wangled a solo gig. Just me, my cello and my loop pedal. David, the guy who was running the Tron this year, was unsure about letting me have the slot at first, I had to argue and smile and flatter my way in when I signed up to it (he was happy to let me sign us up as a band, less happy to sign myself solo) (weird).

I had a forty-five minute slot and probably about thirty-five minutes of material. But these things always start late, I thought, and they won't mind me getting off a bit early, it's a pretty relaxed gig.

About a hundred and fifty people were there, more by the end. Silent and listening, smiling when I chattered a bit at them between songs. Flatmate Aaron was there, drinking, smiling and occasionally offering a gentle heckle. I did about half an hour, then announced my last song. The church was full. Packed with people whose eyes were shining in the nicest way. David came over. Can you do a few more?

So that was the point that I improvised a song with my loop pedal, getting rhyme suggestions from the audience and making up a song about... I forget. At one point we mentioned the public toilets just outside the church, though. I remember that.

I sold all my CDs. I signed autographs and was offered drinks. It was weird and special. Aaron and I immediately went to a nearby Spendy Wine Bar to drink Spendy Wine and eat cheese off wooden boards.

That was kind of amazing.

Also amazing: we found somewhere with Prosecco on tap. We did not stay there long, it was far too dangerous and, contrary to popular belief, being an ARTISTE does not pay as well as say, being an investment banker made of gold.

******************

I have other news! (No, not pregnant, engaged, booked in for a nose job etc.)

Geddes Loom, my band/company with Ben and Dan, have been selected for the Routes North project. Ta DA!

This means rehearsal space, two performances in each of the three venues (The Lowry, ARC in Stockton and Theatre in the Mill in Bradford) and general love and support (the 'love' bit isn't in the contract) from all the venues. We are also being funded by the Arts Council, which is excellent and will keep wine on the table for a bit longer.

We begin rehearsals at the end of this year, continue next year until the shows in mid-February.

You can read more about it here (if you like).

It does mean me leaving my lovely teaching job at Christmas. I've been there for nearly three years and I will miss the staff and kids. It's been ages since I have been in one place long enough for people to properly get my name right and notice when I have done something to my hair. (Also we had an Ofsted inspection recently and got 'outstanding'.) (I am aware that I'm beginning to sound like a smug family round robin letter sent out at Christmas alongside a photo of everyone in a Florida sunset wearing linen. Sorry.)

So I will be truly freelance once more. Which is obviously totally terrifying in some ways, but it's a good time to do it. Eggs Collective have got loads of 2014 plans as well. Lowri is still in Brazil and Lydia's lyd-ing it up in London, but we don't stop planning, booking things in and peering at each other on Skype dreaming of white wine hugs.

Oh, and I'm secretly hoping to go and do a stint in NYC at some point. Not a massive stint, I mean a few weeks, but there are some exciting people and things going on and I want to get on planes and do things.

I am booking a schools and colleges tour of Bright Lights, as I performed it in a nearby school to year 11 pupils, followed by a day of workshops then a performance by them for the year 9 pupils as part of year 9 PSHE to talk about failure, ambition and resilience. It worked well, and I reckon it's the best way forward with that show. I am proud of it, but when I imagine my future solo work it looks like that gig in Edinburgh, talking to people and hoping their eyes shine.

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Once, in London, I had stayed up all night recording a song for a competition deadline at 10am the following morning. You had to hand in a CD to BBC building on the Aldwych. I had recorded all the vocals, then stuck the microphone out of my bedroom window to record the buses rumbling up and down Brixton High Street. At 8.45am I finished and, dizzy with relief and sleep deprivation I sprinted out of the front door. Clutching my precious CD I hailed a taxi. Just as I was about to get in a man stopped me and asked me if I knew how to get to The Strand. He sounded foreign and looked a bit panicked. Well, I answered, as it happens, that's very near where I'm going anyway! So get in. I was going to pay for it anyway.

He got in and we screeched off. At 9.30am I stumbled in to the reception and thrust my CD in the pile.

The man was waiting for me when I got out. Want to go for breakfast?

Yeah, OK.

We went, and I remember thinking in a detached way that this was like the start of a romcom. I meet a man and win a competition to kick start my career, all on the same day!

We had found a café, had croissants, coffee and a nice chat, shook hands and left. Oh yeah, I thought, we were just two people having a moment. Like life, not a romcom.

(Oh, and I never heard back from the competition.)

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Geddes Loom have started a music/comedy/spoken word night! The first one is next Sunday at Three Minute Theatre, and will be excellent. If you are in Manchester or nearby you must come along.

Edinburgh 2013 - Halfway Through Week Two

I am sitting in a lovely bar in which I was once dumped. Back then I was crying so hard I could only see the fuzzy outline of the coffee cup and the wilting froth within. They didn't charge me for my drink, and I'm still grateful for that touch of humanity.

Nearly ten years have passed since that moment, and here I am tapping away like the Apple Mac twat I have become in the intervening decade. I have walked up here after my performance today, to do a bit of tapping and thinking. I thought it would be nice to come back here, to re-live that moment and think about how far I've come since I came up to Edinburgh in my early, mid and then late twenties. Last year I was performing an excerpt on the Free Fringe, and six years ago I was flyering for cash during the days and spending my nights at the Jazz Bar waiting until four in the morning for the chance to sing a single song (read about it here, if you like). Now I wake up and gather my self and my stuff, hoist my heavy rucksack onto my back and trek out into the day. Flyers fanned, I take the first deep breath of many and approach the "punter".

This hurdle successfully negotiated, I chat away with everyone I meet. "Oh yeah!" I realize. "I like talking to people! This is OK."

People react in different ways. Some are happy to take the flyer but feel that eye contact is too much of a commitment. Some smile indulgently, as though I'm an errant but well-intentioned puppy. Others refuse, which I don't mind, especially when they are nice about it. Sometimes they stop and look intently at the flyer, which I take as a cue to begin talking about the show until I notice an expression of fear and bafflement begin to creep across their features and realize they aren't understanding a word I'm saying.

Some people are morons about it, taking the opportunity to enjoy the brief flash of power they feel as the potential consumer of something I'm trying to sell.

"I can't come to the show because I'm going home now" said one such delight. "But sell it to me anyway!"

In automatic sell-mode, I began, much to his amusement. I trailed off and he laughed imperiously.

"Well, good luck with that!" he sneered, and wandered off.

I approached two elderly gentleman.

"Can I give you a flyer?"

"Yes!" one replied "But only if I can take your picture. Pretty girl like you!"

So I dutifully smiled with my flyers as he fumbled with his ancient camera, pressing wrong buttons and eventually thanking me and tottering off.

I spent a long time talking to two Irish women about the festival and the nature of fame and sexism in the media.

"So" one of them leaned in. "What happened when you tried to make it in the music industry?"

"Ah ha! You'll have to come to the show and find out!"

She slapped me gently on the hand. "Oh, you!"

At the end of our chat they promised to come to the show, and one of them hugged me.

"Well done. You're doing so well. We are so proud of you."

Everyday I go into the dressing room about twenty minutes before the show before me finishes. I have begun to take their cues for my getting ready process. When I hear a little shriek I know it is time for me to turn my computer on, and in the first moments of the music that whispers the end of the play my stomach does a flip. Perhaps for the rest of my life, when I hear those notes, I will have a Pavlovian response and nerves will scratch at the door. I hope so.

Bright Lights is going very well. I have had another review, which was very nice! I won't bore you with them here (FOUR STARS) but if you want you can read them here and here. I think the hour that I am actually performing is the simplest bit, because by now I know exactly how that goes. Everything else is a weird mix of adrenaline, sweat and trudging.

In other news: my EP CDs have been dispatched so I will be selling them at my music gigs, the first of which is tomorrow. My lovely flatmate Fi and I have been having wine-fuelled jam sessions in our kitchen, with her on guitar and vocals and me on cello and backing vocals. I am hoping that Fi will be able to come with me to some of my solo gigs and we can perform together. We've been trying to think of a name for our band. So far we have come up with Fi-lé, but are unsure of it due to the inevitable fish associations.

(Side note: Fi's Mum has been known to read this blog, so if you are reading this, Fi's Mum: Hello! Thanks for reading! Your daughter is great!)

I have eeked out this coffee for as long as is reasonable. Due to not having been dumped in the last ten minutes (as far as I am aware) I will almost certainly have to pay for this one.

I am still knackered and can't remember what a vitamin looks like. The spot on my chin is still clinging on (although Ben says it brings out my eyes) and I am covered in inexplicable bruises. But I love it (not the spot). I adore my flatmates so much it's unseemly, and am making new friends everyday. Later on I am going to a seance! I hope it's like Charmed (bagsy being Alyssa Milano). Then later I am going to see Luisa Omelan's epic What Would Beyoncé Do?, which I have seen one and a bit times (I performed just before and after her, with Eggs Collective at Latitude).

I like sitting here, the scene of ancient heartbreak. No longer heartbroken. Maybe the tinest bit bodybroken, but I reckon I can just about deal with that.