Week two of the Fringe passes and my mood seems to shift from one 4 hour period to the next. The experience is so intense at times that you feel you might only be able to really appreciate it once it’s all done and dusted. I’ve racked up 22 shows as audience member, I think, and performed in a mere 14. The initial burst of excitable, gleeful, speculative reviews gives way to a counter-response – sometimes bilious (“self-indulgent, poorly acted nonsense”), sometimes a little over-exuberant (“MUST SEE!” / “the writer should get a Nobel prize for Literature…”) Rants now permissible through the welter of online public forums.

It’s a painful, yet hardening experience. The fact remains our audiences have been about 90% full on average. Granted, we’re in a small venue, but that’s pretty impressive tally for any Edinburgh Fringe show. I was trying to be philosophical about the divisive feedback, needing to remind myself that we never set out to make a comfortable, tidy show. It had always been our intention to challenge audiences and ourselves with the material and the staging of it.

Of everything, the review that I’d been most concerned about was published today. I had become very anxious about its impending publication on behalf of myself, Jonathan and Red Shift. From a much respected and honest voice.

Here it is, Lyn Gardner’s Guardian review of Red Shift’s The Fall of Man.

Phew

We happy phew…