Edition 2: One Star Only

My cast-mate Jimmy and I are running out of a police station. Our sneakers smacking against the endless, wet cobblestones of Old Town as we climb the hill towards the castle that overlooks all of Edinburgh. The smell of stones. Everything is wet. We run past some oldish men. I hate oldish men! Gnarled or withered. Timeless, yet out of time. Pissed even when they're not pissed and never really pissed when they are pissed. The sirens wail in the winding streets behind us but we're supposed to be on stage in twenty minutes and the small matter of an arrest is not going to get in our way. Fortunately the authorities, who are rather relaxed in their profession here, hadn't get our details yet and fortunately, whilst it turns out that whilst there are 258 venues to see live performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh still only has one 24-hour Police Station. Jimmy points out that I am wearing a t-shirt advertising our show date and time, that as the playwright it also has my name printed on it and that the police station wasn't exactly devoid of security cameras. What if they come for us? He says. As long as they buy a ticket. I answer.

A major part of your job here at edFringe is giving people flyers to your show so they'll come and see it. That and wearing matching t-shirts and getting in people's way whilst they go about walking through the streets. The business of self-promotion is cut-throat and as our elephant was lost in transit by British Airways we are falling behind in the attention getting stakes. Despite this loss our show is selling out each day, the venue has asked we put on extra shows and we have triumphantly scored a one star review from the Edinburgh Evening Post so the success of the show is building.

With so many shows here I'm not sure every one gets reviews here so to pick up the slack: A girl I saw with a yoho-diablo. Five stars. The guys who work at Mosque Kitchen serving cheap curries. Five stars. The statue of a yo-ho diablo in the meadow near our house. Five stars. Some years ago Henry Rollins choke slammed me onto the back of a ute in a carpark out the back of the National Theatre in St Kilda because I threw a shoe at him We met again on the street here in Old Town, he has a show here too, and he still has the shoe. Two and a half stars.

You can't drink the water here so most of the cast are on G+Ts and I'm drinking the tears that stones cry when they see how much I miss all of you back in Melbourne. As long as we've not been arrested I'll be back with more next week.