Saturday 11 August 2012

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!



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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  

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