How long have you been doing comedy?
I've been doing stand-up comedy for about eight years. So, it's taken a while. I've always wanted to go up and do a show and it got the point in my career that I thought it was the time to have a go doing it.
Why did you want to do a show?
I've always wanted to, but you have to be able to afford do it and have the desire to do it. All these things came along at the same time and I thought 'right, this is the time I need to go and do Edinburgh'.
What did you get out of it?
I got a massive buzz, affirmation and ego rubbing - I had quite a successful one. I got a lot of good feedback. I played one of the free fringe venues and I always had a full house, which is one of the advantages of playing the free fringe. One of the gigs I got off the back of it was The Eczema Society charity ball this year. I haven't had any TV contracts thrown at me, but if you go to Edinburgh expecting to be greeted by lot of media people saying 'come and do this TV program, come and do some radio', that's not really the way to get into it.
Would you do it again?
Yes, I'd love to go back and do it again next year, but its early days yet. Once you've done it, you get the bug. Also, once you done it and did well, you get a certain level of following from people who've seen you the previous year. You get a lot of regular festival goers who'll recognise you then you're no longer an unknown quantity - there might be a small or large amount, depending on how successful you've been, of people who saw you the first year who will want to see you again.
What would you do differently?
I'd probably go to one of the bigger venue next time. I've done it once and I know it works. I'd make it slightly more accessible too, but overall I wouldn't make it vastly different, probably just a bit bigger.
Where did you get your ideas for the show?
They come from 'write what you know'. I got some really good advice from other comics in the early days of the show. One comic said, 'write what you know and look for the truth', two things that I think are key to writing the show. So what I've done is tried to write as near to the bone as my experience and then lightened it up in places; look for the funny and the irony. The subject matter makes it really tricky, the only other jokes I know about eczema are what other people tell, the ones where they're taking the mickey out of the people who've got it. Obviously, that's not what this is about, it's about the experience that you have and getting through it.
You have to write a lot. Getting the material for the show and getting the money together for the show is the hard part. Taking the show up to Edinburgh is secondary to having a good show. Do the writing, test it, and know you have a good show before you take it up.
What was the name, why did you choose it, and did it reflect the theme?
It was called the '30 Year Itch'. The name describes what the shows about. That's key. When you're in Edinburgh and there's loads of people with flyers, having a slightly ambiguous title doesn't help. You need something that at least explains, or hints towards what the show is, and preferably catchy.
Obviously, the word 'itch' is on the title and when I come out at the start of the show I say 'My name's John, and I've got an itch', after that it keeps getting mentioned throughout the show.
Why do you have to have a theme?
You don't have to have a theme, you're not tied to a theme. Some stand-ups that go up there, the just do a straight hour of stand-up comedy. A theme allows you to do a show where people know what the subject matter is. But if you go up and so a straight out hour of stand-up it doesn't tell anybody who you are and what you're about. Also, if you have a theme, it doesn't make it easier to write, but gives it more scope and context. It's also expected in Edinburgh to write about something and have a theme.
Is it easy to write a show?
Is it easy to write a show?? Ha, ha, ha! What do you think!
One of the techniques that people do when they do their first year is to take all their stand up and theme it. Find what runs through the entire material; join the dots with that making it as broad-based as you can. Maybe your stand up is about being an underdog, someone who lacks confidence, so you could do most of your stand-up within the context of the show. Where if it's a specific subject matter then you can't really wander off topic that much. It's quite important to have a good theme - certainly when I wrote mine, one of the stipulations I had was: this is personal therapy for me and write about something no one done a show about before.
Certainly, in the early days when I went to see my agent and I told him I wanted to do Edinburgh, he asked me what my ideas were. I told him I was going to do a show about having eczema and he said 'ah... have you got anymore ideas you can bring to the table?' because marketing that idea isn't an easy task. But, that's the point I made, no one has done it, that's why I intend to do it.
What kind of venue do you look for?
You go for whatever venue you can afford. I went with the free fringe, as I thought that it was my first time in Edinburgh. The venue that I got was the Canon's Gait, the flagship free fringe venue. It's been there for 12 years and has a guaranteed turnover in audience. For me it was ideal, otherwise, you're paying out a lot of money to play the bigger venues with the idea to fill them out, which is hard job to do - you need to be well established to do that. I saw this as very much my first year of doing Edinburgh, so I did it in the most beneficial and practical way for me and I won out in that respect. If I went back next year I'd go to a paid venue, I won't just be a nobody next year.
How expensive was your show and how did you finance it?
I did a show in a free venue and I paid for all the publicity, accommodation, production costs, flyers and posters. It cost me around two thousand pounds to go to Edinburgh, and that was cheap. I paid for it with a combination of gigs and working lots. I took on as many gigs on as I could and saved the money up. You could look at it as someone who goes on holiday to do an extreme sport, where it costs a lot of money to have fun.
How many previews did you do and why do you have to do them?
I did seven previews, but I probably should have done 10 or 12. The reason to do a preview is to iron out the kinks in your show. You can only learn what's funny and what's not by doing a preview. I would add little bits to my set, but you have to run the whole show to see where the peaks and troughs are.
Where did you do your previews?
Anywhere that does them. The biggest place I went to was Wolves Little Civic theatre venue and the smallest was the Dog and Parrot in Newcastle, a tiny little gig, very cosy but well established. You can't just drop into a weekend club and say 'hello, my name's John and I've got eczema', that's not what they want to hear on a Friday night. So, as its such a personal thing, the only times I had to run it out were at the smaller gigs and the previews.
