OMID DJALILI, comedian
Lowlight Back in 1997 the big venues didn't want me, but I was told the
Fringe Club was really on the up. I was the only comedian there. I was
getting three, four people a night, so I went out leafleting.And the only
people who came that night were six Somali students and one Mongolian, none
of whom, it turned out, understood much English. And I had an existential
fit on stage, what my wife has come to call one of my eternity attacks: I
started doing this stream of consciousness about my role in the Universe.
Four stayed - one of them, Mongzul, became my penpal.
Highlight Captaining a comics' football team in 2001 against the
Stenhousemuir reserves, and carving out a 3-3 draw. Lee Mack and Jason Byrne
were in the team, Noel Fielding was our man of the match. We had a return
match in 2005: they punished us 8-1.
JOSIE LAWRENCE, director, The Time Step
Lowlight One year I went up with a friend to just see some shows, and I
became violently ill on the train on the way up there. I spent the one and a
half days I was there in the hotel bathroom, then got the train home. I
basically went to Edinburgh to vomit.
Highlight The first time I went with the Comedy Store Players to
Edinburgh, we all stayed together in a flat, we got up to all sorts of
things. Neil Mullarkey was the first to arrive and he thought it would be
funny to put the TV on static, turn the radio up really loud, knock all the
furniture over and lie on the floor - he must have been lying there for ages
before we arrived.
MARK WATSON, comedian
Lowlight I was waiting to go on a stand-up bill, it was 1.30am, and the
promoter had a breakdown. There were about ten people there: half of them
were the acts and a number of comedians had done material about what a s***
gig it was. She flipped, said “nobody's ever given me a chance!” and
screamed at all of us to get out. I remember thinking, “My career is not
really in the position I would like it to be.”
Highlight I did my first 24-hour show, in 2004, and at the end I
proposed to my wife. I hadn't gone into the show thinking about proposing,
but there was a feverish atmosphere. Every time she was out of the room, I'd
talk about it to the audience. When we got to the end, the comedian Paul
Provenza, who was in the crowd, shouted, “When are you going to propose?” I
either had to do it or explain why I wasn't going to. Looking back, it feels
like a dream.
GUY MASTERSON, actor and director
Lowlight The saddest moment of my Fringe career was walking away from One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I wasn't well, my mother wasn't well, and I
had to step down two weeks before opening. The show went on to phenomenal
things in the West End, and I wasn't a part of it.
Highlight For Twelve Angry Men we got the cast - 12 comedians
including Bill Bailey and Owen O'Neill - together only six times before
opening. They were standing waiting for curtain up, and you could almost
smell the urine. But at the end the whole house stood up, and seeing 12
grown comedians with tears rolling down their cheeks was a wonderful moment.
REGINALD D. HUNTER, comedian
Lowlight One year early on, I realised that my promoters were f***ing
me over. I was finding my flyers in the bins and averaging between four and
eight people a night. But when you asked them about it, they had that white
middle-class chit-chat that made you feel like an a**hole for complaining.
Highlight The year I first got nominated for a Perrier Award. I was in
a flat with my director, John, and my manager, Dave, and they both came
running in saying, “We've been nominated!” The house phone went off, my
mobile went off, then Dave's mobile went off - it was surreal.
MICHAEL McINTYRE, comedian
Lowlight The low point, every year, is the final Monday. People have
gone, everyone looks depressed and the crowd you get are the laziest, most
disorganised audience. They've had three weeks, but it's only now they're
coming to see you?
Highlight The good thing about Edinburgh is that the process kind of
works. So this year is my highlight - I sold 8,000 tickets before the
festival began. I can relax, I can just do what I do.
NINA CONTI, ventriloquist
Lowlight One year I decided to go and see something really different, a
dance piece in a big top. It came highly recommended. They crumbled eggs on
themselves, made crying moaning sounds ... you knew within a minute it that
was going to last for ever. Put me off physical theatre for years.
Highlight Finding out I was pregnant in the toilets of the Gilded
Balloon in 2003. My husband was standing outside waiting for me - and then
five minutes later I was standing in a cupboard in a monkey suit,
reassessing my life.
COUNT ARTHUR STRONG, entertainer and educator
Lowlight I've always given a good account of myself. Well, unless you
count the time I only had three people in. For the final routine I had to
change into a flowery armband, which involved going out and coming in again.
On my way back in, most of the audience were going out.
Highlight The time I went to see the Ladyboys Choir of Soweto. One of
them sat on my lap and took off my glasses. It was not as described in the
brochure, I'll tell you that much - I lost of a pair of glasses! So my
highlight was also my lowlight. I'll be going to see them again this year
and all.
STEVEN BERKOFF, director, On the Waterfront
Lowlight The first time I performed in Edinburgh was in an adaptation
of The Fall of the House of Usher and we had a late-night slot, and
it was running late. The dressing rooms were occupied and the bar was
packed, so all we could do was walk round the Grassmarket, the square
outside the theatre, to get some peace. Totally horrendous.
Highlight It is a relief to cross the border to a place where people
like you and look forward to you. Once we were doing a production of Messiah
and one of the actors went Awol, so I flew up from London and stepped on
and did the show. Even with the book in my hand, the response from the
audience was tremendous.
RICHARD HERRING, comedian
Lowlight The year I appeared as part of the Oxford Revue, 20 years ago.
It felt like every comedian in the country turned up to have a go at us. It
was real reverse prejudice - comics who were saying, “respect every sex,
race and creed” were picking on us because they thought we were posh.
Highlight The first year I did a solo show, Christ on a Bike. I
was really nervous - I had a radio mike and a hand-held mike, which wasn't
turned on; I just needed it for security. But I remember seeing people in
pain laughing, and thinking, “I've got more where this came from.”
TIM MINCHIN, comedian
Lowlight My first year here I got one of the most ungenerous reviews
I've ever read. One star from The Guardian. I can still recall most
of it now. “Fretful porpentine hair,” he wrote. Don't f***ing quote Hamlet
at me! I haven't read any of my reviews for more than two years now.
Highlight The same year, really - just seeing the room full. Then later
I got the Perrier Best Newcomer Award. And two weeks before the Fringe I'd
been doing a covers-band gig in Melbourne.
STEPHEN K. AMOS, comedian
Lowlight I arrived at my flat three years ago, which I booked on the
internet, and it was just hideous. In the living room there was a huge oil
painting of a gollywog. I thought, is this a joke? I left the next day - but
could only get half my rent back.
Highlight I was doing a stand-up show at the Gilded Balloon and a fire
alarm went off. The building had to be evacuated. So I led my audience into
the square outside the venue and finished the show outside - no mikes, just
me and a bunch of other comedians. There must have been about a thousand
people there. It really was the spirit of the Fringe.
BRENDON BURNS, comedian
Lowlight Back in 2002 I went on a three-day bender. I caned it, did a
show, didn't sleep, kept caning it, did another show, and by the third night
I was starting to think, hey, I need never sleep again. I was insane. I went
on and I was blathering; I provided 90 minutes of agony for those people.
Highlight Last year, winning the if.comedy award. When I went to the
prize-giving, the hang time between the envelope being pulled out and
Christian Slater announcing it was to me immense. I took ages to get on
stage. I couldn't move. I was literally in shock.
Appearing at the Pleasance: Omid Djalili, Josie Laurence's The Time Step,
Mark Watson, Reginald D. Hunter, Michael McIntyre, Nina Conti, Stephen
Berkoff's On the Waterfront, Tim Minchin and Stephen K. Amos. At the
Assembly Rooms: Count Arthur Strong and Brendon Burns. At the Underbelly:
Richard Herring
