How to think up a title for your very first Edinburgh Fringe comedy show

First of all, think of it not from your viewpoint but from the viewpoint of the punters and the reviewers.

In my opinion, you should have a title which starts in the first half of the alphabet.

ZEBRA JOKES FOR FOLKS may seem like a good title, but punters looking through the Fringe Programme start at the front and work through looking for attractive shows. So they go A-B-C-D-E etc etc.

By the time they get to M or N, after literally hundreds of shows, they are starting to skim the listings, their eyes are glazing over and the time slots they want to fill-up already have multiple shows vying for their attention. By the time they get to Z, they probably wish they had never had the idea of going to the Edinburgh Fringe in the first place..

For this reason, the late Malcolm Hardee used to start his titles with Aaaaargh!… increasing the length of the Aaaaaaaarghs year-by-year to out-manoeuvre copycats.

He was almost always first in the Fringe Programme’s comedy section listings.

In Edinburgh in August, you are not the only show in town…

Don’t go for Aaaaaaargghh! The market for it is already full. But I suggest you have a first word which starts with a letter between A and M.

Using the title A ZEBRA SHOW probably will not work because A and THE tend to be ignored by the Programme’s alphabetical listers.

Also, in my opinion, you should have your name in the title because, ultimately, the reason you are performing at the Edinburgh Fringe is to sell yourself and awareness of yourself to punters and to the media – NOT primarily the show.

Jonathan Ross first became famous on the Channel 4 show THE LAST RESORT WITH JONATHAN ROSS.

No-one knew who the fuck Jonathan Ross was when it started (not the punters; not TV industry people) but, because the show was good, they inevitably got to know his name. Every time the show was mentioned or printed, his name was publicised because it was in the title.

Another important thing is DO NOT BE TOO CLEVER with a title. Achieving impact is more important than being seen to be clever-clever. The more clever a title is, very often the more confusing, obscure and – when glimpsed for 1½ seconds on a flyer or in the very cluttered listings page in the Programme – possibly the more incomprehensible it is – especially to people from the US, Oz, Europe etc. The dividing line between being intriguing and confusing & annoying is narrow.

Your self-explanatory title has to stand out without an image

You only have 1 to 1½ seconds at very most for the title to register in people’s brains as they skim through listings, see your flyer among many or see your poster among many 15 feet away across a street.

KISS – Keep It Simple, Sucker.

The other thing to remember is that, in lists of “Today’s Shows” – either in The Scotsman newspaper or on a board at the venue or elsewhere – the punters only see the title in isolation – they may well NOT have read your 40 carefully-crafted words in the Fringe Programme. So your sole sales pitch to the punters who have never heard of you and who have no idea what your show is about is the title.

My inclination would be to figure out what TYPE of comedy show it is going to be.

Then figure out three words which make that obvious.

Then make them jolly and attractive (no easy feat).

And mix your name in there somehow.

I know that, when the Fringe Programme deadline comes, you will almost certainly have very little idea what is actually going to be in your show. But is it satire? Quick fire gags? Stories? Autobiographical? Physical comedy? Gay? Variety? Sketch? Surreal? Rude? Clean? Cutting-edge? Clowny? Family?

As a punter, if I see a general show title from a performer I have not seen, I have no idea what the show is like. It could be any of the above categories. If it is in a simple Daily Listing in a paper, in a magazine or on a board, there is not even a flyer or poster image. Just the title.

So the title on its own has to tell the punters – or at least hint – what TYPE of comedy show it will be.

Someone like Jimmy Carr does not need to do this. Because people know what to expect. They know who Jimmy Carr is and they know he is not a comedy magician or a juggler or a drag act.

Janey Godley is unusual in that her name will bring in punters

Someone like Janey Godley can get away with titles using puns on her name because she has a big existing audience in Edinburgh. So For Godley’s Sake! will work for her. The word GODLEY will get in her dependable audience.

But, the punters probably have no idea who you are – it is your first Fringe show. Remember that, defying expectations, a large percentage of your audience is likely to be local NOT from London. All the Fringe Office research I have ever seen seems to confirm this.

Another bonus to a clearly-defined title is that the title – as well as helping the punters know roughly what your show is about – will actually concentrate your own mind on exactly what the show is about and will stop you whizzing off in all sorts of irrelevant directions. Everything in the show should relate directly to the title.

And don’t use meaningless words – every word has to actually mean something. This is more important in the text rather than the title, but…

“Hilarious” and “rib-tickling” mean bugger-all.

Your show is in the Comedy section fer feck’s sake. Every show can say it is “hilarious”. What is your show’s Unique Selling Proposition? Why is it better and more interesting that the other zillions of comedy shows yelling for attention?

Do not even THINK about being zany!

Meaningless words like “wacky” and “zany” are actually suicidal. If any experienced reviewer sees those words in the description, it screams “18-year-old University student wankers who think they are funny and want to be famous and fêted”. It is like people putting up signs saying: “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”.

These “wacky” and “zany” shows are almost guaranteed to be laughter disasters. I would personally avoid like the plague seeing any show describing itself as “wacky” or “zany” and I would be more likely to go see a comedy show calling itself “Satanic” than one claiming it is “hilarious”.

In my opinion.

But that don’t mean a thing.

The other vitally important factor to bear in mind is the oft-repeated refrain from William Goldman’s book Adventures in The Screen Trade – “Nobody KNOWS anything”.

However experienced or knowledgable anyone is, they don’t KNOW what will work.

You have to ultimately go on your gut instinct, have self-confidence and ignore any advice you think is wrong.

Don’t forget you can probably change the name of your show either until you submit it or until the final deadline for the Fringe Programme (both have been the case in past years) or until some arbitrary date that the Fringe Office may conjure up.

Because, just as this may be your first year at the Fringe, so it is for a lot of the people working for the Fringe Office, many of whom change from year to year.

Richard Herring had to splurge out his ‘O’

There was one inglorious year – 2012 – when a completely barking mad person was in charge of the printed Programme. I blogged about it at the time – here and here and elsewhere.

2012 was the year poor Richard Herring had his show asterisked TALKING C*CK despite the fact that the origin of the word ‘cock’ in that phrase is not sexual (it comes from ‘cock & bull story’) and despite the fact that his original show TALKING COCK had been printed in the Fringe Programme with impunity ten years before, in 2002.

In 2009, I staged a show which the Fringe Programme had happily printed as  AAAAAAAAAARRGHHH! IT’S BOLLOCK RELIEF! – THE MALCOLM HARDEE AWARD SHOW. They would never have allowed that in 2012 and that had nothing to do with changing public taste but with individual stupidity in the Fringe Office.

Never assume anyone anywhere in Edinburgh in August is sensible.

2012 was the year the title STUART GOLDSMITH: PRICK was UNacceptable by the Fringe Office but the title STUART GOLDSMITH: PR!CK was totally acceptable (with an exclamation mark replacing the I)… and Australian comedian Jon Bennett intended to perform his first Edinburgh Fringe show: PRETENDING THINGS ARE A COCK.

The show’s title had been printed in full without any problem in the brochures for the Adelaide Fringe, the Edmonton International Fringe, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Montreal Fringe and the Vancouver International Fringe. But the Edinburgh Fringe Office that year insisted the word COCK had to be changed to C*CK.

Mindless Fringe Office censored the word but not the image

To make matters even more ludicrous, the word had to be printed C*CK in the Programme listings, but the image for the show (also printed in the Programme) had the word COCK rising erect from a man’s groin.

The same Programme happily printed the show title MOLLY WOBBLY’S TIT FACTORY, a show by KUNT AND THE GANG and Reginald D Hunter’s show WORK IN PROGRESS…AND NIGGA while banning another comedian’s show title because it included three dollar signs in a row –  $$$ – which, it was claimed, did not fit ‘the Fringe’s house style’.

Always assume that everyone in Edinburgh in August is on some hallucinogenic drug or has a severe personality disorder. This assumption has served me well.

Never assume anything at the Fringe is easy or anyone is sane.

Most importantly, do remember that the title of your show is all about self-promotion, not necessarily about the show itself.

One template which I do recommend for any Edinburgh Fringe show title is:

AAAAAAARGH! I LISTENED TO JOHN FLEMING AND THAT IS WHY I, (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE), HAVE THIS CRAP TITLE FOR MY (INSERT YOUR GENRE HERE) COMEDY SHOW.

Trust me.

How to win an increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award

The increasingly prestigious target of stunts

Honestly.

You just have to say the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are increasingly prestigious at the Edinburgh Fringe and they start to be.

One of the three annual awards is the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt promoting an Edinburgh Fringe show.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Richard Herring’s clever publicity scam and Cunning Stunt Award contender in which he announced he had decided not spend lots of money on lamp post ads during the Fringe and instead spend lots of money giving away a free copy of his DVD entitled 10 to members of his audience.

Lewis Schaffer tries to hijack Richard Herring

Two days ago, Lewis Schaffer announced he will be spending the entire promotional budget for his Fringe show Lewis Schaffer is Better Than You on giving every paying member of his audience a free copy of… Richard Herring’s DVD.

Lewis Schaffer’s show is part of Bob Slayer’s Pay What You Want variation on the Free Festival.

Lewis Schaffer said: “I thought, this year, why not spend my entire £75 budget on something that people might actually want? People love Richard Herring. At first, I thought I would give them a DVD of my own shows, but my shows are unfilmable and people don’t like me as much as Richard.”

Lewis Schaffer cannily added that the offer lasts only as long as his unspecified stocks last and only, he said, “if I can strike a deal with Richard Herring to get them cheap and, if not, I’ll give a copy of a similar DVD or other gift with a value of greater than £1 to all paying customers at each show.”

I am not sure if ripping off someone else’s stunt disqualifies Lewis Schaffer from consideration for the Cunning Stunt Award or actually makes him even more considerable than Richard.

Malcolm Hardee would not have approved of any real rules (photograph by Vincent Lewis)

As there are no actual rules for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards, this is something we will have to decide nearer the date, possibly on a whim. Having any actual pre-determined rules would have been anathema to Malcolm.

A couple of days ago, I also got an email from the Fringe Office saying:

We’ve been getting a lot of enquiries about the Fringe awards for this year, so I wanted to add a line to the award summaries on our website to clarify how acts can enter their shows for the awards. Please could you let me know how acts can enter for the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award or are they nominated or just selected by the judges? And then I’ll add that to the details on the website.

The only answer I could think of giving was:

God preserve us from people actually applying for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards. We have enough problems! Acts are selected by the judges via osmosis, gossip, buzz and word-of-mouth.

Juliette Burton completed her pop video shooting yesterday

Juliette Burton, I guess, is another Cunning Stunt contender. Yesterday, I went to see her shoot the final scene for a pop video promoting her Edinburgh show When I Grow Up. It is only part of a whole raft of linked promotional ideas she has lined up. This might bode well as, last year, Stuart Goldsmith won the Cunning Stunt Award for multiple linked promotional ideas.

Juliette also got me to come along to a meeting she was having with her choreographer Omari Carter near the MI6 building. She told me she had once worked nearby, but this was less impressive than one comedian I know who was actually interviewed for a job at MI6.

Alas I arrived at cricket too late to stop Bob Slayer drinking

After that, I drove down to see the Comedians’ Cricket Match at Staplefield in Sussex, where Bob Slayer had apparently tried to swing the game by being one of three batsmen simultaneously playing.

And in a blatant, slightly drunk, attempt to curry favour before the Fringe, he tried to ingratiate himself by telling me:

“Your blog is very effective at getting publicity.”

He is publishing Phil Kay’s autobiography The Wholly Viable, financing it via an appeal on Kickstarter.

I blogged about it at the end of last month and, as of yesterday, the Kickstarter appeal for £3,333 had raised £4,727 – that’s over 141% of the target, with 2o days still to go.

“Your blog sent a few interesting backers to Phil’s Kickstarter,” Bob told me. “Russell Howard and Alan Davies are the latest backers, who also include Glenn Wool, Isy Suttie, Arthur Smith, Miss Behave, Chris Evans – who may or may not be the ginger one – Davey Byrne, who may or may not be the frontman of Talking Heads and John Steel – who may or may not be the original drummer for The Animals.”

Frankly, I think it’s more likely to be John Steed of The Avengers.

Kay supported by Alan Davies, Russell Howard, Johnny Vegas

“Facebook has referred most backers to the Kickstarter page,” figure-fancying Bob told me, “with Twitter just behind it and there have been Tweets from Richard Herring, Johnny Vegas, Boothby Graffoe and Limmy.”

So there you have it, an increasingly prestigious blog effective at getting publicity which you should be proud to read, if only for the increasing bullshit factor.

But back to reality.

At the time of posting this on Monday morning, I am just about to leave for jury service at a court somewhere in England. My jury service was supposed to end last Friday, but has trundled on to today and possibly tomorrow.

There may be a future blog in this – not that I am one to be increasingly obsessive about seeing everything as a blog possibility.

Edinburgh Fringe’s Stuart Goldsmith £700 down; Ian Fox suffers “small cut”

Comedian Stuart Goldsmith won this year’s increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt promoting an Edinburgh Fringe show. It was a multi-part stunt, but part of it (mentioned in my blog back in July) involved a YouTube video

in which he said that he would donate £1,000 of his own money to the Waverley Care HIV charity…

“…unless I see a single instance of the title of my show being used in a pun… If any puns at all based on the title of my show being Prick are used in any piece of comedy review or criticism, either in a magazine, in a paper or online then for every instance I will remove £100 from my charitable donation.”

Now that the Fringe is over, he told me today…

“I’m not parting with any cash until I get the final info back, as reviews occasionally come out after the Festival has finished, so I’m clinging on but…  at the moment, it’s looking like I’m going to lose £700 in total, thanks to the words ‘spunky’, ‘wider and deeper’ and ‘tackles the issues’.  I am very happy however that my loss will be Waverley Care’s gain!

“I thought it was too funny an idea not to try, even if quite expensive in the long run!”

Police say Ian Fox suffered “a small cut to his nose”

Meanwhile, the Edinburgh Evening News has reported the street attack on comedian Ian Fox last week. According to the police, the suspect is “male, white, in his 30s, between 5ft 9in and 6ft tall with a medium build and short blond hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt with green stripes on the sleeves and blue jeans.”

I might be dubious about police descriptions, though, as the same police source says of Ian Fox: “The victim suffered a small cut to his nose during the incident.”

Looking at the above photo of Ian, taken three days after the attack, that seems more than a little under-stated.

At the Edinburgh Fringe: a battered face, Russian Egg Roulette and thefts

Ian Fox’s injuries at the Edinburgh Fringe yesterday

The increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show was held last night at the Counting House in  Edinburgh.

Before the show started, comedian-writer-photographer Ian Fox  came along to say hello.

“Will you be staying?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I am feeling a bit nauseous. It’s going to be hot in there.” He was attacked in the street a couple of nights ago, as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog,

He took his dark glasses off and showed me the damage inflicted on him and the three stitches used to sew the side of his nose up. Not a good look.

That is, perhaps, my most vivid memory of the show. That and three naked men in the same corridor.

The show lasted two hours with 24 people performing in 11 acts. I think we came in four minutes under time, but I have forgotten the exact figure. I saw more of it than I usually see of those annual shows but still not very much, as I was running around slightly. Well, at my age, tottering around. So, if anyone can tell me what happened, I would be grateful. And I don’t even drink.

Miss Behave comperes the Malcolm Hardee Award Show (Photograph by Lewis Schaffer)

I do remember the Greatest Show on Legs preparing for their Naked Balloon Dance by stripping off in the narrow corridor leading to the room, as there was a space problem backstage. This meant that a more-than-middle-aged couple who left the room to get drinks from the bar returned to find three naked men talking about balloon movements as they turned the corner. The woman looked simultaneously surprised yet pleased at the sight.

I also remember the extraordinarily superb compering of Miss Behave  in her skin-tight red costume. She head-butted a watermelon. What can I say? It exploded and was very messy.

The three Award winners were:

Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality: The Rubberbandits

Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award: Stuart Goldsmith

Malcolm Hardee ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award: Trevor Noah

I remember those winners accepting their awards, of course.

And fairly memorable also was the sight of comedians Arthur Smith and Richard Herring smashing eggs against their own foreheads in our Russian Egg Roulette contest supervised by Andy Dunlop, World President of the World Egg Throwing Federation.

Andy Dunlop: Russian Egg Roulette supremo

Earlier in the week, I mentioned in a blog that Andy Dunlop and World Gravy Wrestling champion Joel Hicks had recently triumphed at the Worthing Air Tattoo. In my innocence at the time, I assumed this was an air event which involved planes. But, last night, Andy told me it was actually what used to be called the Bognor Birdman Rally transferred to a new seaside home in Worthing – that’s the one where people leap off the end of the pier with wings attached in an attempt to fly.

“The soles of my feet were sore,” Andy told me, “because you hit the water at about 35 mph.

Lewis Schaffer + Egg Roulette medal

The eventual surprise winner in our knockout Russian Egg Roulette contest last night was American comic Lewis Schaffer.

Claire Smith of the Scotsman newspaper later lamented to me:

“What have you done? The award winning Lewis Schaffer – We are never going to hear the last of that…”

As the winner, according to Andy Dunlop, Lewis Schaffer automatically becomes official champion Scottish Tosser, something of which Lewis Schaffer seemed inordinately proud.

His win at the Counting House was all the more impressive because, last year, he had been banned from the Counting House because, during his shows there, he kept turning the loud air conditioner off and, when it got hot, opening the doors.

Arthur Smith was an early casualty in the Russian Egg Roulette contest and made an early exit from the show to prepare for his legendary annual Alternative Tour of the Royal Mile, which started at 2 o’clock.

I missed about the first ten minutes of this, but was in time to see Arthur try to prove the non-existence of God by standing on the entrance steps to St Giles’ Cathedral and saying, if there was a God, then would he please provide a naked woman.

Unfortunately for Arthur’s thesis, a naked woman then did appear to join him on the steps only to leave almost immediately, mumbling something about it being very cold out.

Martin Soan of the Greatest Show on Legs (currently in the spare bedroom of my rented Edinburgh flat) tells me that Arthur’s Royal Mile tours used to include genuine historical facts but, last night, this seemed to include only: “That’s some old church over there.”

Naked man stands proud in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile last night

Certain traditions were maintained, though – in particular, getting a punter to climb on top of a reasonably high object for £10, strip naked and sing Flower of Scotland and, further down the Royal Mile, Arthur getting drenched when someone threw a bucket of water over him from an upstairs window (also hitting a passing and entirely innocent cyclist).

One (I think new) addition to the tour was Karen O Novak being designated as an official kisser and comedian Shappi Khorsandi having a theatrical snog with her… and a punter saying he had to go to the loo and being persuaded that, for £10, he should instead piss on the cobbles in the middle of the High Street while the tour throng (perhaps 30 strong) stood in a circle round him with their backs to him. He said he couldn’t pee if we watched. I felt we should have watched.

There was also the appearance of a live and apparently untethered crocodile at what I think was the junction of George IV Bridge and the High Street.

Those, rather than my own two-hour show are my main memories of last night.

But, on a more sobering note, today I got a message from Lewis Schaffer which said:

Lewis Schaffer loses £600 in Edinburgh

It was a horrible day yesterday. Two brilliant shows from me and then I go to my venue to retrieve my suitcase and about £600 was missing. It was stolen from inside my bag there. I was a plonker for leaving money in the suitcase. A schmuck. 

I’m still in pain today. 

Your event was the best ever and not just cause you let me be in it. I loved the Greatest Show on Legs and Miss Behave was amazingly over the top. 

For me to beat Arfur Smith was a comfort as, on a few occasions, he’s trashed America on stage right after I’ve been on. Deliberately. So sweet revenge. 

And see what I mean about boiling Edinburgh rooms? No ventilation at all. A freezing cold evening outside and inside it’s boiling. A simple extractor fan would have cooled that room!

Lewis was not the only one whose property was stolen. I heard today of a comedian whose MacBook Pro laptop computer was stolen from inside a locked room at his venue. It contained all his scripts and the lighting cues for his shows.

Because it was an Apple computer, he had taken the precaution of activating the Find My Mac facility in the iCloud. This means that, using GPS, you can see on another device where the MacBook Pro is.

He traced it to a student accommodation block and to one of three rooms. He told the police, who said they could do nothing about it unless he gave them the IP address

Quite why (given that they had due cause to believe the stolen computer was where it was) they could not go and knock on doors to locate the stolen machine, is one of those mysteries of policing to rank alongside Is there a standard bribery rate card for the Metropolitan Police?

The increasingly prestigious critic and judge Kate Copstick

I heard about the stolen computer when I was having tea with Kate Copstick, a long-time judge for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards.

We were talking over ideas for Fringe shows next year and how best to honour Malcolm’s memory. Ideas included hosting a Biggest Bollocks competition and having famous male comics appear in full drag – the audience has to guess who they are.

It is ideas like this, I suspect which make the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show increasingly prestigious.

After that, we went our separate ways: she to have tea with a millionaire, I to see the Greatest Show on Legs strip off for their penultimate show at the Hive venue.

My life. Don’t talk to me about my life.

But things could be worse. I could be Ian Fox.

Before I went to bed tonight, I emailed him to find out how his battered face was.

“Starting to itch a bit tonight,” he e-mailed back, “and my teeth are starting to throb slightly, as the sensation is starting to return.”

This sounds at least hopeful.

2012 Malcolm Hardee Awards shortlist announced at the Edinburgh Fringe

Did I mention the Malcolm Hardee Show?

At the Edinburgh Fringe, when he meets people he knows in the street, comedian Lewis Schaffer’s opening line has now become: “What have you heard?”

“That’s a sign,” I told him, “either of a deep neurosis or a guilty conscience.”

“Both,” he replied.

I saw two comedy wannabes in the street this morning. Someone who looked like (but was not) John Hegley and someone who looked like (but was not) Dr Brown. You know you have a certain profile when wannabe lookalikes appear in the streets during the Edinburgh Fringe and/or when you become (as John Hegley did) one of the multiple choice answers on a primetime TV gameshow. I once saw a miniature version of Russell Brand walk across the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh. It was not him. It was a miniature version of him.

I am looking forward to miniaturised clones of Lewis Schaffer roaming the comedy streets in the next few years.

Anyway…

At lunchtime today, we eventually decided the short list for this year’s Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards. People were hassling me (which is fine) to the end.

The sex tourist’s avenging postal courgette

I got an e-mail yesterday from Sex Tourist comedian Chris Dangerfield, which said:

This morning I received a parcel. How exciting. I opened it to find a courgette and an offer to pleasure myself with it.

There was a message enclosed (see picture) which said:

HEARD THE ONE ABOUT THE COMEDIAN WHO THINKS PROSTITUTION JOKES ARE FUNNY?

HE WAS TOLD TO GO FUCK HIMSELF.

The note was signed

FEMINIST AVENGERS

“It restores my faith in humanity,” Chris told me, “that people will make such efforts for someone who – although not exactly suffering a drought of such indulgences – will happily consider and most likely do as suggested.”

This morning, I got another e-mail from Chris:

I showed the letter and the courgette to Kate Copstick. Apparently courgettes are not good for the suggested purpose. ‘They snap’ she added, as one opts for the larger end and the smaller end can’t take it.

Chris Dangerfield got nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award, but not for this.

In other Award-related news, the Awards’ designer John Ward sent me an e-mail:

It seems I have been ‘entered’ into the Life Long Passion Awards by an Italian woman who looked at me web site – The top prize is 22,000 Euros or, by the time the winner is announced at the end of the year, about £17 85p in our money…

 It appears that she works for this organisation and thinks I ‘fit the bill’ – which must be a small one, even with the Service Charge added..

The interesting thing is she works in Italy but used to work in England and can’t believe she missed me while she was over here.

Ha well.

I was so enjoying my obscurity as well.

Meanwhile Andy Dunlop, international president of the World Egg Throwing Federation, who is supervising our Russian Egg Roulette contest at the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show on Friday e-mailed me:

I am arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow, fresh from my triumph at the Worthing International Air Tattoo where I and Joel Hicks (the World Gravy Wrestling Champion) took the trophy (and a cheque for £500) for winning the Kingfisher Class. Our plan to pass the 100m metre mark and turn left for France failed at around 15m.

I will be bringing capes, bandannas and medals.  Eggs will be prepared closer to the day.

Shortly afterwards – we were supposed to meet up at 12.30pm – I got a text message from courgette expert and one of the Malcolm Hardee Award judges, Kate Copstick, which read:

Aaaaaargh. I have just been asked to talk about rape on Radio 2. I will be with you at 1pm

Eventually, we got together and this press release emerged…

____________________

The shortlist has been announced for the increasingly-prestigious, non-sponsored Fringe comedy awards which represent the true anarchic spirit of the Edinburgh Fringe. Nominees (in alphabetical order) for the three awards are:

**** THE MALCOLM HARDEE AWARD FOR COMIC ORIGINALITY *****

JAMES HAMILTON 

… for his writing, producing and co-directing work on the Casual Violence comedy sketch shows. He was nominated last year, but his comic mind is still almost inexplicably weird.

SIMON MUNNERY

… a long-time mate of Malcolm Hardee’s whose work each year is always original but who this year, according to Malcolm Hardee Award judge Kate Copstick, “has taken his comic originality to an entirely new level” in his Fylm Makker and La Concepta shows.

THE RUBBERBANDITS 

… because they are “feckin hilarious” and because we think they may have wisely not performed enough dates to qualify for the rival Fosters Comedy Awards just so they were more likely to get nominated for the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards

***** THE MALCOLM HARDEE CUNNING STUNT AWARD *****
(for best publicity stunt promoting a Fringe show)

NATHAN CASSIDY 

… for paying people £1 each to come to his stand-up show and 50p to watch his documentary. He says any money he gets from audiences at the end of his shows is being given to charity. “We think.” says Malcolm Hardee Awards organiser John Fleming, “that this says something post-modern about the economics of the present-day Fringe although, to save my life, I’m not quite sure what.”

CHRIS DANGERFIELD

… for getting his show Sex Tourist sponsored by a local escort agency. It is difficult enough to get sponsorship for Fringe shows, but (unlike most drink company sponsorship) this particular sponsorship is entirely relevant to the content of the show – and anyone with a flyer gets an alleged 10% off the escort agency’s prices.

STUART GOLDSMITH

… for turning this year’s ludicrous censorship of his and others’ listings in the Fringe Programme to his advantage and then posting a very effective YouTube video in which he said he would donate £1,000 of his own money to the Waverley Care HIV charity, but would deduct £100 from this every time a critic used a pun on the word ‘prick’ in their review.

HAVING A HEART ATTACK

The judges gave very serious consideration to nominating the concept of “having a heart attack” for the Cunning Stunt Award this year. American comedian Rick Shapiro was in hospital for three months, got out in late June and still came to the Fringe in August. Fellow American comic Andrew J.Lederer was (in his words) “buzz-sawed in two” for a heart operation but came to the Fringe less than three months later. Richard Tyrone Jones also had heart failure and Carey Marx got publicity by not coming to the Fringe because of his heart attack.

“This year,” says Malcolm Hardee judge Kate Copstick, “several very good comics have all come up with the same idea to win the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award – and that is to have a heart attack. I admire their dedication, but too many people got on the bandwagon. A couple of guys were also in car crashes. We at the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards Committee are thrilled that people are going to such lengths to seek nominations but for Health & Safety reasons – and because we’re not insured – they should maybe think about stopping here.

“Andrew J Lederer not only had a heart attack but is doing six shows per day all this week – at least, that’s what he told me. And Bob Slayer has not yet had a heart attack but is risking liver failure with his extraordinary nightly intake of drink in a sordid attempt to get noticed by the Committee.

“He and comedian Jeff Leach were allegedly mutually masturbating each other on stage at Espionage in an attempt, I think, to get a nomination. But we at the Committee are choosy in our nominations here at the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards.”

So ‘Having a Heart Attack’ has not been nominated.

***** THE MALCOLM HARDEE ‘ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID’ AWARD *****

TIM FITZHIGHAM

… because he has potential in depth with TV series, book, DVD and live show potential. He is also a gambler which means he might either make a million quid or end up a million quid in debt, which is very much in keeping with the spirit of Malcolm Hardee’s life.

TREVOR NOAH

… because, perhaps not in keeping with the spirit of Malcolm Hardee, Trevor epitomises ‘class’ on stage. We think he is going to be snapped up and will be playing Carnegie Hall type venues soon.

THE RUBBERBANDITS

… who are also nominated for the main Comic Originality Award. Like 2010 Award winner, Bo Burnham, their work on the internet may mean they break through massively to a worldwide audience. According to Malcolm Hardee Award organiser John Fleming, “We also want to suck up to the Youth audience who may not know of Malcolm.”

____________________

The winners of the Awards will be announced on Friday 24th August during a free-to-enter two-hour variety show at The Counting House in Edinburgh as part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival. The show starts at 2300 and ends at 0100 on Saturday morning.

The two-hour variety show hosted by Miss Behave will include the Greatest Show on Legs performing their Naked Balloon Dance, a Russian Egg Roulette contest supervised by Andy Dunlop, international president of the World Egg Throwing Federation… plus Charlie Chuck, Richard Herring, Otto Kuhnle, Mat Ricardo, Arthur Smith, Paul Zenon and a host of other unlikely acts.

The Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show will be followed by one of comedian Arthur Smith’s infamous night-time tours of the Royal Mile. In the past, these have, alas, ended in nudity, anarchic behaviour and, on one occasion, the arrest of comedian Simon Munnery by police in the mistaken belief he was a German. Arthur Smith’s tour leaves from the Castle entrance at 0200 in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are given in memory of “one of the most anarchic figures of his era” – “the greatest influence on British comedy over the last 25 years” and the “godfather to a generation of comic talent”… Malcolm Hardee.

The Awards began in 2005 (or 2007, depending on how you count) and will run until 2017 because that’s the number of trophies which were made. The Awards are not sponsored and no-one organising them or judging them takes any money to cover costs. Entry to the Awards Show is free. 100% of any monies donated by audience members on their way out of the Awards Show on Friday night will go direct to Scotsman comedy critic Kate Copstick’s Mama Biashara charity.

Barking mad censorship continues at the Edinburgh Fringe Programme office

The censored and acceptable Edinburgh Fringe show image

Yesterday, I blogged about the insanity and inanity which has characterised the compilation of the Edinburgh Fringe Programme this year. In particular, the barking mad decision by the Fringe that the title STUART GOLDSMITH: PRICK was unacceptable and that it should be replaced by the title STUART GOLDSMITH: PR!CK which was acceptable.

Commenting on my blog, Stuart’s reaction was: “I thought this was an isolated incident, but I’m genuinely disturbed by how many people have come forward and said they’ve had copy disallowed for reasons of ‘taste’, ‘decency’ or ‘house style’. This was the Edinburgh Fringe we were talking about – What’s happened?!”

The other cracker which I mentioned yesterday was that comedian Richard Herring’s updated version of his 2002 show TALKING COCK (which was printed in the Fringe Programme under that title with no problem in 2002) had been changed by the Fringe Office – without his knowledge – from TALKING COCK: THE SECOND COMING to TALKING C*CK: THE SECOND COMING.

Quite why the word ‘cock’ (which, in this context comes from ‘cock & bull story’ – a phrase with a totally non-sexual origin and meaning) was deemed offensive but, in this context, the word ‘coming’ was deemed inoffensive is a mystery.

And it remains a mystery. And it is not alone. Australian comedian Jon Bennett is performing his first Edinburgh Fringe show PRETENDING THINGS ARE A COCK at the Edinburgh Fringe this August.

The show’s title has been printed in full without any problem in the brochures for the Adelaide Fringe, the Edmonton International Fringe, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Montreal Fringe and the Vancouver International Fringe. And, this August, the Edinburgh Comedy Festival booklet/posters/flyers will have ‘Cock’ written in full in Pretending Things Are a Cock, but the official Edinburgh Fringe Programme will not.

This morning, producer Bronwyn Hooton told me: “It’s baffling to think that the Edinburgh Fringe – the largest fringe in the world – is censoring the art forms that appear within it, when your own Commonwealth countries do not.”

The Edinburgh Fringe, this year, seems determined to become a laughing stock world-wide, not just in Britain.

Bronwyn continued: “The welcome video on EdFringe.com says: The Fringe was created 65 years ago when eight companies who hadn’t been invited to take part in the international festival, in the true show-business tradition and in a flash-mob style decided to stage their work anyway. On a tradition of open-access and freedom, to have censorship issues from the Edinburgh Fringe Office themselves seems to go against this ethos they claim to abide by.”

The word ‘cock’ in Pretending Things Are a Cock had to be censored (to ‘c*ck’) on the image used in the Fringe Programme because the word was deemed to be offensive, though the image itself (see above) was not.

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this censored image.

But it is a very nice asterisk and, obviously, it has made a big difference.

Has the Fringe Office got their kn*ckers in a twist and gone completely mad this year?

Well, yes, apparently it has.

The Chortle comedy website yesterday pointed out that, printed in the upcoming Fringe Programme will be “a show called Molly Wobbly’s Tit Factory, which has escaped the blue pencil, comic Chris McCausland has been allowed to use the quote from a Chortle review ‘balls-out funny’ and a show called Sex Ed: The Musical contains the blurb: Have you ever tried hand-to-gland combat? Playing the clitar? Spelunking? Have you ever been vaginally tardy?”

Writing in his blog yesterday, Richard Herring pointed out that Kunt and The Gang’s name is acceptably print-worthy to the Fringe Office, as is Reginald D.Hunter’s show title Work in Progress… And Nigga (Reg has a tradition of putting Nigga in his titles) and that, indeed, in Richard’s own Programme entry, the Fringe Office took no exception to the phrase “the yoghurt-spitting sausage” but, somehow, ‘cock’ was too much for them to swallow.

Comedian Jody Kamali commented that the Fringe Office “said I couldn’t use three dollar signs in a row ‘$$$’ in my Fringe entry, as it didn’t fit their ‘house style’.”

Also, following my blog yesterday, Chortle phoned the Fringe Office and reported that “when asked why certain words are deemed offensive and others not – and how Herring’s title was changed without him knowing until now – the Fringe office said they did not wish to comment.”

No surprise there. But there was a surprise that – several weeks after the final deadline had past – the Fringe Office told Richard Herring yesterday that his very expensive quarter page ad in the Fringe Programme was suddenly also unacceptable. He was told that he would have to disguise the word ‘cock’ by removing the letter ‘O’.

In his blog yesterday, Richard wrote: “I wonder will the Fringe brochure people object if the “O” of cock is… hidden behind a big splurge of dripping white liquid… (it) might be allowed because a splurge of white liquid is not on the list of rude words.”

The two substitute censored versions he submitted to the Fringe are below:

“Talking Cock” – censored with an asterisk

“Talking Cock” – censored with a splurge

Presumably, the Fringe Office objected to Richard Herring’s ‘cock’ because of what they perceived as the use of a genital word (even though the common phrase Talking Cock is not sexual in origin).

However, they had no objection to a review quote on the ad, which says:

“Man’s answer to the Vagina Monologues – The Guardian”

So, apparently the word ‘cock’ (in the context of the non-sexual-origined phrase Talking Cock) is unacceptable but the word ‘vagina’ (which has a solely genital meaning) is completely acceptable.

Richard Herring, in his blog yesterday, wrote:

“Whilst I acknowledge there is a point where some choice has to be made over what is suitable to go into a general publication, I am concerned about the draconian level of censorship that is occurring here and what it says about what the Fringe is turning into. This should be the last place where freedom of expression is clamped down on.”

Or, as Richard said to me: “Underneath the silliness and twatdom it’s a very important issue”.

What on earth is going on?

One thing is certain. There is no point asking the Fringe Office.