Five Days Till Fringe

Working at the Fringe is hard, amazing, tiring, exhilarating, boring, exciting... and every other adjective you could possibly think of. Every day seems to last three weeks and yet before you know it you wake up and it's the last day of shows. 

I've started to think that the Fringe is actually pumped full of that stuff they put in Pringles so you have to finish the whole tin. It doesn't matter how many times I finish at 3am before going back to work five hours later. Or how many times I have abuse hurled at me by audience who are angry at the rain (this happens every day.) I'm always back for more the next year. 

This year I've decided to keep track of some of the more hilarious, offensive or down-right ridiculous, things that happen to me throughout August.

The Fringe officially starts this weekend. Preview prices - which are only slightly extortionate as opposed to mortgage-your-home-to-pay-for-two-tickets expensive, make for a hilariously hectic Edinburgh. It's a baptism of fire for anyone starting work at the Fringe. If, like me, you've been doing it for years, it fills you with a sort of dull dread. It's like a wave of hell, sprinkled with sold-out shows and impossible turn arounds. We can't stop it. We can't change it. We can endure it.  

The actual occupants of Edinburgh have all already migrated south like terrified birds because this is no time to live in the capital if you have real things to do (like work, go to Tesco's, walk down the Royal Mile without having half a rainforest of flyers shoved in your face.) In their place are hundreds upon thousands of artists, street performers, student theatre groups who think they're the most out-there thing since sliced bread and of course the hard-working people who run the Fringe! 

As always I'm hopeful that this year it will be sunny. And that this year all the shows will go on without a hitch. And that this year no one will swear at me because of a five minute delay. And that this year I'll get enough sleep... 

Optimistic.