It’s just after 8.15pm. The lights go down into a frightening darkness; the background music dies down into an attention-grabbing silence; the kind of silence that occurs when someone tells an inappropriate joke at a family gathering. I take a final gulp of courage and then a sound echoes around the tiny 80-seater hut that lets me know it’s time for my 2011 Edinburgh journey to begin.
Tinchy Stryder’s ‘Game Over’ plays, probably a song that most of the predominantly white audience don’t know well, but nonetheless they applaud as the lights slowly creep back up and I appear from behind the curtain. As I do so a combination of bright lights and almost-suffocating heat engulfs me, my heart is beating harder than Laurence Fishbourne on Angela Bassett in the Tina Turner movie, and I’m proper nervous, PROPER nervous! I’m not talking that ‘there’s a bailiff at the door’ nervous; I’m talking that ‘Oh shit! I’ve just stepped on my Grandma’s corn toe’ nervous! And I say my first words “Evening. You alright?” hoping for the best.
Fast forward an hour later and I’m back behind the curtain, only this time covered in sweat and stinking like the answers that come out of James Murdoch’s mouth! But even though I’m sweaty and stinking I’m happy. I’ve just got through my first performance at Edinburgh. Yes some parts still need tweaking, it’s not the finished article, but I remembered my set and got laughs… Phew! Only another 23 more performances to go…