Sunday Column: Jake Donaldson
Stand up comic and director of North East comedy collective, Felt Nowt reports back after week one of a month-long Edinburgh adventure – which naturally began with a gig on the East Coast mainline
There are probably easier ways to start a run at the Edinburgh Fringe than performing stand-up on a moving train.
But this is North East comedy collective Felt Nowt, so naturally our first gig of the Fringe took place somewhere on the East Coast Main Line.
A few of us joined Lumo passengers travelling from Newcastle to Edinburgh and gave them an unexpected preview of what was waiting when they arrived. Thankfully, there were many laughs and nobody pulled the emergency cord.
Once in Edinburgh, the slightly less glamorous job began: turning a room above a cocktail bar into a comedy venue. Lights went up. Sound and video projection were installed. Windows were blacked out. Chairs were arranged. Eventually, it looked like a proper Fringe venue.
And then we opened the doors…
When Felt Nowt decided to take over a venue for the month and fill it entirely with shows from North East performers, none of us really knew how it would go. Edinburgh is a huge financial gamble, and we were nervous about being based in the New Town, away from the frantic centre of the Fringe around the Royal Mile.
A week in, those worries feel a lot smaller.
My own show, Jake Donaldson: The Fifth Weezer, sold out four of its seven performances and came close on most of the others. More importantly, that hasn’t been unusual. Shows in the venue have been pulling in really encouraging numbers.
A big part of that has been the collective effort behind it. Acts aren’t just turning up, doing their hour and disappearing. People have been flyering for one another, recommending other Felt Nowt shows to their audiences and treating the venue’s success as a shared one.
Previous Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee and Fringe veteran Seymour Mace perhaps summed up the mood best:
“I’m having a great time, numbers have been better than I expected, my stress levels are way down, audiences are both lovely and generous and I’ve already broken even. I thought this might be my last show, wasn’t sure if I’d ever come back but now I think I might.”
The team behind comedy play & Steve have had a similarly positive week. Jack Simmonds told me:
“The & Steve team have had a brilliant time, lots of lovely audiences whose feedback has been invaluable to our process. And of course, the absolutely fabulous Anja has helped us bring it all together brilliantly!”
Felt Nowt member Anja Atkinson has been the driving force behind making the venue work, no small feat when you consider the logistical challenge of putting this many North East comedians in one room for a month while also performing her own show every day.
Our venue, The Alchemist on George Street, has helped enormously too, including generous discounts on food and drink for performers. The bar has naturally become our little Fringe clubhouse: somewhere to meet after shows, celebrate sell-outs, dissect what worked, or blow off steam after an audience that was slightly quieter (or considerably rowdier) than anticipated.
Despite our fears about location, footfall has been great. People seem genuinely willing to travel across Edinburgh specifically to see the acts we’ve programmed – which says something about the quality of North East comedy and the appetite for it.
My Fringe experience has been slightly different because, rather than living in Edinburgh for the run, I commuted from Newcastle every day. There are disadvantages to that; a surprising amount of Fringe “networking” seems to happen in performers’ bars at approximately 1am, by which point I was usually somewhere around Berwick-upon-Tweed.
But there was an unexpected benefit too. Edinburgh can become a bubble during August. Leaving it every night gave me a chance to decompress, sleep in my own bed and return the next day – excited to do it all again.
My own run is finished now, and I couldn’t be happier with how our first week has gone.
More importantly, the Felt Nowt venue carries on without me. There are loads more North East shows coming through the doors over the rest of August, all of which will continue to prove that you don’t need to be based in London to make your mark at the Edinburgh Fringe.