My inner child is throwing a major tantrum and screaming I wanna go home NOW! I have never seen my inner child like this but this is what I am going through. I don’t know how to reassure her or calm her down so I’m letting her go through it until she exhausts herself then I’ll hold her tight and tell her it’s OK. It is the final week of the festival and I suddenly feel like I haven’t really done much for my career here beyond the leg work of learning how to make myself more accessible outside SA and how to work outside my comfort zone. Networking? Laughable. A wasted opportunity that.

I am convinced there is a certain level of trauma that comes with moving from ‘rock star’ status to scrounging in Edinburgh. And that weird, unhealthy reliance on reviews. As a first timer you wish someone would prep you, prepare you for the worst so that you really can tell when you are doing as well as a first timer would be expected to. You are thrust, violently, from an audience that trusts you, to an audience that you need to prove yourself to. Or one you can’t figure out. 

The last two shows? I don’t know anymore. I need an external eye to tell me.  I’ve been hitting my marks as usual, adding a bit more here and there. I’ve had people double over with laughter.  I love that. If I can’t hear you laugh, watching your body go ” OK< you got me, I am tickled proper” warms my heart.  The best is when there are no South Africans in the audience and I get that response. Then I know, I have pulled it off successfully without the help of nostalgia. Last night certainly was quite a chilled out show, with an audience who stayed with me from A to Z. Their applause was energetic, encouraging and prolonged, I had to get back on stage for a second bow, that should be a good thing yeah? I think I was still in 6 people mode because I never got as big as the room, I just kept in neat and contained. Somehow I don’t think I was quite in the moment. I am not quite conversant in the inner workings of the Fringe, but I do know it can break you. In fact it has made me feel like I have personality disorder: One minute I feel confident and happy, I am in a proverbial foetal position sucking my thumb and wanting my mommy. I love being here, then I chide myself for agreeing to do this. I love and trust my show then my inner child wants to shove it down my throat. (Maybe I’m just hormonal?) I’ll tell you this much, it is serendipitous that I cannot drink because I have needed a drink, and were I able to, that drink would have been a tall, bottomless one lol! But hell, tough up soldier! You ain’t dead yet. The sadist in me still wants to come back next year, though. 😀

For the first time I wished I was travelling in a cast or here with an entourage. Just that constant support and feedback system where you don’t feel completely alone and find yourself spending a little too much time on introspection. I even tried slipping those big girl panties on, but my inner child but she just threw them back at me. 

I countdown to getting back home and have minor anxiety attacks at the idea of the massive show I go into the night I return. Three nights performing to an audience of what, 1800? The idea has suddenly become overwhelming.  I feel like I need to lick my wounds a bit before I jump back in the deep end, but hey, this is showbiz. You keep rollin with the punches.  But I’ll be returning to a fan base that knows me and trusts what I do. To real laughter. Not polite, theatre-etiquette obliging laughter, but the roar of a people hungry for some good tickling. Yeah, I promise my inner child all of this, the way you would entice a child with cake and ice cream. And hope it is enough to push her through the week.

Oh yes! AND I go home to a nomination in the comedy category at the Mbokodo Awards, which recognises SA women in the arts! Exciting stuff!