Madness? THIS IS EDINBURGH!

The Edinburgh Fringe is over. For a first time fringe appearance from two relatively-unknown-in-the-UK performers, it went astonishingly well. Good audiences, good responses, a better than average box office total, and at least one four star review.

If you ever decide to bring a show to the Edinburgh Fringe though, be ready for the intensity. If your day resembled ours, you would do the following:

Wake up at about noon, review last night's show on video, cringe at any parts that didn't work, rehearse said parts, hit the gym, answer emails and media enquiries, try to arrange more media enquiries, head down to the Royal Mile, fight the chaos to hand out flyers to as many of the 900,000 Fringe visitors as possible, collapse from exhaustion, hit the coffee, continue flyering, realise the show starts in 45 minutes, dash to the venue, get changed, rig the show, do the show, hang out briefly with the lovely people who have validated your existence by paying to see you, pack up the show, debrief with the crew, then head out to celebrate or commiserate (depending on how the show went) and enjoy as much of the entire-city-wide party that is the Edinburgh Fringe until you pass out by 4am and begin the cycle again.

Then, when explaining this cycle to a friend back home (along with all the amazing statistics about the festival), your friend comments "wow, that's madness!" Pumped on adrenaline, caffeine, and mild post-traumatic stress, you grin and paraphrase King Leonidas from the movie 300, shouting back "Madness?! THIS IS EDINBURGH!"

Then you would take this photo (parodying the iconic 300 image) to commemorate that moment.

Thank you to David Zeng for the photography, and Vyom Sharma for persuading me that it was worth growing the beard for.

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