Week #3 Curse the League of MC's

Well this is going to be my last blog on the subject and experience of Edinburgh. It's Friday 27th August, I've done 48 shows plus couple of guest / open spots a week at other shows. I'm tired and missing my life. Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed the experience, it's just so intense. I was walking home the other afternoon, exhausted when I passed a fellow comic (Steve Aruni) going out to perform. As he passed me in the street he just look at me and said “Ground-Hog Day!” and walked passed. I think that sums up the experience. Everyday without exception, doing the same things without a break or variation. That's the hardest bit to get used to.

As I've mentioned before the highlight of my show has been the midnight shows. It seemed very one was better than the last, until two nights ago. I was Mc'ing and set the room up, which wasn't hard, as they were totally up for it. The first ACT came on and decided to not bother doing any material and just re-MC the crowd. As if this wasn't bad enough, the next ACT decide to re-MC, the re-MC'd crowd. I was fucking livid! By now the audience had 35 minutes of banter with the same people being talked to over and over again. Nightmare! At the break, half the crowd left...

Thanks 'League of MC's'. You are my hero's!

To make matters worse, this was the only night the influential magazine 'Three Weeks' decided to review the show. We've have 20 brilliant ones and they review this one!
As I'm sure you can imagine, the review wasn't great (2 stars) and we got a-bit of a slagging.
Here's what they said:

Late 'N' Free
Various Guests and Hosted By Frank Cassidy and Damian Kingsley
Late night comedy shows must strike a balance between being relaxed and remaining professional; 'Late 'N' Free' got that balance wrong. It had an odd structure: three short sets, a break and then two long ones; why not just three followed by a headline? The break merely served as an opportunity to leave. The greatest pitfall was that the first two acts relied too heavily on audience interaction (mostly interaction with one particular audience member), and those two supplied very little material. The third act was the only one to utilise some of the comedian's own work and was funny, but by then it was too late. The crowd struggled through the two head-liners and left.
Laughing Horse @ Espionage, 5 - 29 Aug, 12.00am (1.30am), free, fpp 86.
tw rating 2/5
[ajb]

Anyway, I don't care. I'm proud of the show and it's just bad luck that they came to that one.

Tomorrow is Saturday, the last Saturday of the Fringe and I'm really excited because my pregnant girlfriend Hilary is coming up for the weekend. I've missed her terribly.

Thanks for reading my blog, I hope it's been fun to follow this.

See you all back in London

Love

Frank