28th April, 2009 - 10 Anecdotes About the 2009 Fringe #1

I am just back from my annual pilgrimage to the Edinburgh Fringe. It was my tenth consecutive visit. I have now reached the stage where I an scared not to go in case it presages my death.

This year I wrote a show called 21 Girlfriends which we put on at the Edinburgh College of Art. The show involved nearly 6 months of rehearsing, writing and re-writing. The script was developed through improvisation sessions with our totally brilliant cast, who out hours and hours into developing back stories and histories for the characters. For my part, there were 9 separate re-writes crammed around my already busy life - all in an effort to stage a show that is entertaining and funny.

However, after all the time I spent slaving over the lap top putting the script together, I have to say that it came as a bit of a disappointment to me to find out that the biggest laugh in the whole show is as a result of a pair of comedy false teeth. So - here is my tip to any aspiring comedy writers out there - forget your carefully constructed gags, and get more comedy gnashers into your scripts.