Pest of the Fest.

There's only one thing worse than going to the Edinburgh Fringe and that's coming back from the Edinburgh Fringe. It just all ends too harshly. Half the festival should be sent home at the beginning of the last week, then half the remaining lot should be sent home two days later, all the posters should be burned to death on the last Friday and all flyerers who are on stilts, are dressed in their stage clothes or are happy should be arrested and decked. We should be eased into the comedown of Edinburgh but we're not. It's very cruel. For a month we drink heavily, lounge around looking fabulous, bitching about awful shows and shout about not being Dave Gorman for at least an hour a day. And then, suddenly and brutally, it's over.

The train journey back from Edinburgh to London is the most miserable experience you'll ever go through. It's mournful, lonely and scenic. The beauty of the Scottish coast and countryside does not match the ugliness oozing throughout my insides on this unholy journey to reality. For weeks before the Fringe every shiny, happy fuckwit on the internet was cheerily posting their fucking embarrassing "Guide to Surviving Edinburgh" unfunny and pointless blogs full of spiteful tips such as "Drink plenty of water" and "blow your own dad for a Kitson ticket", but where are those smiling, optimistic pricks now? That's right, they're curled up in that cupboard under the sink with a gun to their head, crying and eating their Claudia O'Doherty ticket stubs. So, where's the survival guide to coming back from the Edinburgh Fringe? I don't know but here's some stuff you can try if you're still alive.

As soon as I arrived at Waverley Station yesterday my survival instincts kicked in. It's a long and heartbreaking journey ahead; I need champagne. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS TRAIN JOURNEY SOBER. If you do you will remember happy things and you'll burst into tears. Constantly. Also, travel First Class. Don't even think about travelling with the other performers in Shit Class. It's more expensive but you CAN earn your money back if you work hard enough during the journey. Firstly, you get free wifi which means you can go online anonymously and criticise Craig Hill's poster (an important part of any relaxing train ride) plus you'll see tweets and Facebook posts from hundreds of other performers who are emotionally destroyed by the end of the festival and there is NOTHING cheerier than reading about another depressed performer. Really perks me right up. Secondly, a bottle of champagne doesn't last long and First Class gives you FREE BOOZE. I reckon I easily got another bottle and a half of wine out of them and that really helped a lot especially as I ended up having a 25 minute chat with the improviser Deborah Francis White and, thanks to FREE BOOZE, I can't remember any of the things I must have had to listen to. 

So that's the journey home taken care of but what happens when you get home? Easy. Sure you can go out for a meal and discuss your exciting month with your loved ones, family and friends but that means your missing out in one of the major Fringe experiences: Talking to yourself. What I like to do is come back to an empty house and open and close every cupboard 35 times and then stand by the living room window for an hour just staring. After an hour, I open the curtains and stare for another hour. Then I close the curtains and agree with myself that staring this way is much better. It's time to pour yourself another drink but don't forget to forget to buy any more alcohol so that you can waste more time scrambling around the house looking for any booze at all that you can find. After relaxing with a refreshing glass of Baileys, Fanta Lemon and Mead, it's time to turn the telly on. Why not wind down from the Edinburgh Fringe by watching lots of people who didn't need to go this year because they've already made it big? That'll put you in the right mood. But don't actually watch anything. Concentrating on anything is not part of the Edinburgh comedown experience. Just flick through all the channels. Then do it again but this time, time yourself. Then do it again but this time try to break your record. When you stop crying, have another brandy and veggie gravy.

Look, that's just one way of passing the time. There are lots of things to do (and I have actually done some of these): Read all your takeaway menus and then throw them in the bin, realise you've never lied facedown on your living room floor before and then do that for a destructive amount of time, walk to the back of the garden just to touch the shed and then walk back again, realise that there aren't that many friends that live near you, get excited about next year's show before remembering that your idea has already been done by Reginald D. Hunter and people would think you doing it would be a bit racist anyway, alphabetise your problems, scream, watch The Twin Dilemma, curl up on the sofa and, through the streaming tears rolling down your face, say your show out loud to your dog.

What I'm trying to say is, the day it's all over is crap. And somehow we forget all that in time for next year. For the last month I've had a brilliant time showing off and partying. Today I'm cleaning my whole house and spraying all the furniture because Jerk has fleas. Is it right to come back from the Edinburgh Fringe to spend time dealing with irritating parasites that you can't avoid? Aw, it's like I'm still there. Thanks, Jerk!

Thanks to the brilliant Stand Comedy Club for being so good to me this year. They're the best comedy club in the country and it's baffling to me why anyone would go anywhere else during the Fringe. I love them. And thanks to Diane for the lovely flat (can I stay there next year, please?). If you came to my show then I'm incredibly grateful. It was a fun year. Now to try to get through the next few days. A glass of pernod and water?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.

Seagullible.

Never been to the Edinburgh festival? Well, let me tell you exactly what it's like.

A couple of days ago I needed some things in Sainsbury's but I had very little time to do it because I had to get to my show. I'd spent the morning doing an interview for BBC Breakfast, getting my picture taken for a GQ Edinburgh Fringe special and script editing my new TV series. And by all that I mean I woke up, urinated for 26 minutes and then fell asleep on the sofa watching cartoons. It's all much the same thing. I shuffled my equivalent of a body towards Sainsbury's and spent the journey worrying. I've a lot to buy and very little money and next to no time. Why can't I be more organised? Why don't I do something better for a living? Why didn't I go to Sainsbury's yesterday instead of drinking? Why don't I do something that will earn me lots of money? Why am I here?

Just a few feet away from Sainsbury's, a very large seagull did a massive shit on me.

I have to say, top marks for aim and quantity to that seagull. In that way, I'm impressed. And his timing couldn't have been better. I have a proper massive splatter of seagull excrement on my shoulder, all down the left side of my t-shirt and even some on my neck PLUS I have no time to go back and change. So, I went shopping around Sainsbury's with more than the recommended amout of animal faeces on me. Lovely. About 10 minutes of walking up and down aisles while freaking out customers and upsetting staff while they all pointed in horror and tried not to be sick.

THAT is what it's like up here. You worry and fret but you convince yourself that you're doing the right thing but once you get here you realise you're just dragging shit around that makes other people disgusted at you. 

Yesterday's show was proof of that. The room was hot and stuffy and about 10 minutes before the end a woman right at the front row started to faint. Her boyfriend/husband/owner (I didn't ask) motioned to me that they were both about to leave due to the heat and it definitely had nothing at all to do with the never popular "Pie Chart" segment of my show. He got up but she didn't. She stared at me longer than any woman has ever been able to stare at me so I knew something bad had happened. I asked if she was OK, did she need water and who won the World Snooker Championship in 1982 and she didn't answer at all. She just stared. Right. Time to panic. I opened the window, someone opened the doors and I asked if anyone knew CPR. I don't know if CPR is even the thing that's needed right now but I knew that snooker trivia wasn't going to help. Simon Donald was at the back of the room and rushed to her aid. "Put your head between your legs", he said to the woman just as he has done for 25 years in his comic. She started to feel a bit better almost immediately. What a total hero. It was a brilliantly weird moment when you think to yourself "God, that woman looked like she might have died right in front of me. Thank God the creator of Viz was in".

Simon, I love you and thanks also to my other friend Simon who spent the last 10 minutes of my show holding up a window to let air in despite getting pins and needles. People are lovely at the Fringe.

I've decided to try to follow the lead for the lovely Fringe folk. If you're up here and on Twitter then please check the #LetsSellThisGigOut hashtag every day. The first one is tonight and it could only be Simon Donald with his School For Swearing at The Stand 2 at 10.30pm. Come along!

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

Get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame  

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.

Bad Review.

I am in Edinburgh. I mean, I'm definitely in Edinburgh now. You're not really at the Edinburgh Fringe until something awful or upsetting or completely stupid happens. Well, I had my first one of those yesterday. 

As I left The Stand Comedy Club's Best of Irish show (that's right. I'm one of the very best Irish things ever), I walked up York Place and a Scottish lady stopped me to ask for directions. She was very, very, very, very Scottish. Her accent was amazing. "Excuse me", she said. "Do you know where The Stand is, please?" I did know where The Stand was. It's one of the loveliest places in the world and it was right at the end of this road. I gave the lady the information and then, in an accent thicker than a vomiting man with a lisp, she said "SHIT HEAD".

Brilliant. I've got myself in my first fight of the Fringe. It never takes long so I wasn't that surprised. I thanked the lady and once again she stared at me and loudly said "SHIT HEAD". 

Yeah, alright, love. So maybe I'm NOT one of the best things about Ireland but I never made the claim. Blame The Stand. They booked me. I suppose The Undertones, Tayto crisps and the Giant's Causeway were busy so they were lumped with me. It's not my fault. I don't deserve to be shouted at like that. I gave the woman one of my looks (you know the one. I'll have looked at you like that before, I'm sure) and I said "What's your problem?" She looked at me like she was talking to the stupidest man on Earth and slowed her accent way down. "IS. IT. STRAIGHT. AHEAD?"

Ah, Edinburgh. There you are.

I have a new thing to hate about posters on the Fringe too. That's fun. I've seen the same really pointless press quote on a lot of posters and I can't even begin to understand what it means: "Refreshingly honest". How the fuck can anything be refreshingly honest? Isn't being honest utterly normal? Who the hell have these critics been watching that they think ANYONE is refreshingly honest? Has Richard Nixon got a one man show? Did they all take Pinocchio THAT seriously? Is Joe Power the only person that they have ever seen in their entire lives? And why would a comedian want the quote "Refreshingly honest" on their poster anyway? It doesn't say anything. No one gets excited by the truth. No one leaves a comedy show happily saying "I never laughed once but, Jesus Christ, I never doubted that guy for a second. I feel like I've just stepped out of a citrus shower. I am so fucking amazingly god damned refreshed". No, the only reason that a comedian would have "Refreshingly honest" is because they're delighted that, once again, they've got away with lying. 

I've seen two shows so far and I can highly recommend them both: Bad Musical on at the Gilded Balloon at 5pm and Claudia O'Doherty at Underbelly at 7.45pm. My show was great fun yesterday. It's still a complete mess but a fun mess. Plus it's mostly true stories. Mostly. There are two complete lies in it and one stretching of the truth, I can admit that. Which is so refreshing.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

Get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame  

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.

Sore Ed.

So here I am once more, in the playground of the broken hearts...

Balls. Why in the name of fuck have I come back to the Edinburgh fucking Fringe? Why didn't you stop me from coming back? This is all your fault, you massive bastard. Now I have 4 weeks of being leapt on by young people who are really happy to tell you about their improvised musical semi-autobiographical one man juggling topical sketch revue play and 4 weeks of avoiding comedians who "sold out again tonight" and 4 weeks of rain, misery and failure.

Please come to see my show.

To be very honest, I'm having a breakdown already. Yesterday was Day One and already I've gone mad. It's the loneliness, you see. I've never done Edinburgh on my own before and it's horribly lonely. It's really hard doing a show without Johnny Candon or Robin Ince. Really hard. I mean, it's not as hard as doing a show with Johnny Candon or Robin Ince but it's bloody tough. I miss those guys. And it's been lonely right from the beginning. As soon as I got to King's Cross station on Monday I met Dan Mersh and Paul Litchfield of The Trap and we celebrated the beginning of a month of hell by them immediately going to standard class on the train and me to first class. Oh, I might be wealthy enough to be able to afford luxury but it's lonely at the top of the mountain. I sat on my own while they went with the other poor people to play fiddles, drink whisky, dance and shag our wealthy fiances. I just sat on my own and worried. It wasn't all bad. I met Les Dennis on the train and we are now best friends. He calls me Leggy. Well, I hope he will one day. I love Les. I wonder if he'll ever call me? It's been 3 days now. Please don't leave me alone up here, Les. I need you.

I'm jealous of everyone up here this year. Everyone is more successful and funnier than me. And none of them are lonely. The Trap make me sick. Not only do they have 3 people in their sketch group but also they have about 5 other people on their team. One to direct the show, one produce it, one to tech it, one to usher it and one to write "CUNTS" on all the Idiots Of Ants posters. I could have done that. Why can't I be in a team? Why do I have to be alone? Being solo is shit. Even more so if you're me. I'm the last person I want to work with. 

I wonder if the really successful solo stand up comedians feel like this? I hope not. I wouldn't wish any of them to feel this alone and frightened and sick. I mean, I hope most of them do but in theory I wouldn't wish this feeling on anyone. Mind you, Edinburgh is keeping me too busy to feel genuinely sorry for myself. And when I say busy, I mean furiously angry. Today I saw a cunt flyering his show while he had his pants round his ankles. If anyone punches him I will buy them a helicopter. Last night a woman sang me a description of her fucking awful show. If anyone punches her I will buy them a helicopter full of wine. But, for the billionth year running, the real cunts of the Edinburgh Fringe are the wankers who INSIST on putting "Star of..." on their posters. What do you mean "Star of the Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow"? Are you Michael Mcintyre? "Star of 8 Out Of 10 Cats"? Are you Jimmy Carr? ARE YOU JIMMY CARR? No. You're not. You're Josh Widdecombe and don't you forget it.

My show started yesterday. I was delighted that anyone at all came to see it. Thank you to those who did. It was fun but it's not quite there yet. I've come up with a brand new beginning and ending that I think is very funny. Mind you, I've had to drop one of my favourite bits which I also thought was very funny but ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE DISAGREED. That's fine. I like the show changing. Come see it now and then again at the end. You can play Spot The Difference.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

Get more Legge embarrassment at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm very proud and happy to say that my show, Michael Legge: What a Shame, is on nearly every day of the fringe at the fantastic Stand Comedy Club. Here's info: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/michael-legge-what-a-shame  

If you're too lazy to read my blog or are in fact blind then why not subscribe to Blogging For The Blind at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or look up Michael Legge on iTunes and subscribe there for free also. Thanks.This blog is also available on Kindle but I don't recommend you get that. It's bollocks.