"Edfringetures"

About a year ago I wrote an entry called "Mouthwatering" about the play KinkyFish would potentially perform, "A Dream Play". After our London run of the surreal show in December we fish were pondering what direction we wanted to move in and the answer we came up with was the Edinburgh Fringe Festival aka the biggest arts festival in the world that runs for three weeks, hosting 40,000 shows and 4,000 performers. This year it also hosted for the first time 10 KinkyFish and even more friends of the Fish.

On average we KinkyFish have met up twice a week for the last 8 months to plan, play and rehearse the adapted version of Strindberg's A Dream Play and it has been wonderful in sooooo many ways, not without hard work and sometimes some drama off the stage as well as on.

I became very mindful when I was about 16 that things I looked forward to never seemed to live up to the imaginations I had... the problem with being very creative ;-) I really learnt that happiness is a journey and not a destination and life has been more joyful because of it. So bearing this in mind, as we prepared for the Fringe I emphasised enjoying the moments and the rehearsals, preparing myself for the inevitable let down the Festival would be.

NO SUCH LUCK - The Fringe was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, sincerely, no exaggeration of the truth it was one of the BEST EXPERIENCES OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty big call I know but true!!!!! Needless to say - I'm feeling totally rubbish and depressed now that it's over.

Living and performing in the festival was an absolute perfect state of zen. What added to this was that I was sharing the experience with 9 others who owned it and valued it as much as I. It was about having friends in the car of experience.

Each day we would start out by having breakfast and getting ready at KinkyFish Headquarters and then off to the Royal Mile, Box office cue or half price hut we'd go and we'd talk and hand out flyers and basically flog our show for all it was worth. This would go on for a few hours and then later that afternoon we'd witness the spoils of our work when we'd walk on stage and see the crowd that had come for us. Seeing the crowd made it all worth it even if we'd been flyering in the rain or it had taken a million hours to hand out 10 flyers - to see the results of your work inspired you to do more.

After the debrief that followed our show and we'd head off to different shows, meet different performers and compare stories, then we'd catch up with other fish and then head onto a different show and then we'd meet up with someone else at a different venue for drinks etc... As the days went on the shared experience expanded beyond just the fish but fellow performers that we had met throughout the week, they'd see our show, we'd see theirs, we'd help each other flyer. Basically it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!

With that being said I now think I want to perform at the Fringe every year for the rest of my life!!!!!!!