Fringe Q&A: The worst thing you've done at a festival?
We asked some of the people who are performing shows at the Edinburgh Fringe what the worst thing they've ever done at a festival is. Brace yourself for some of these answers....
To find out more about any of the shows featured here, click on the titles.
My first show.
I used a She Wee and had to walk around with wet trousers for a day.
I once played a comedy and music festival in Pune, India. I was apprehensive of going out into the crowd post my gig thinking someone might come say something. However, there were other bands I wanted to see. So I wore a kind of hoodie. While I had the hoodie on, a bunch of people came up and started chatting and I thought, 'Ok here we go' but they thought I was a younger hipper comedian colleague who often wears a hoodie. Annoyed, I took it off. The entire evening, no one recognised me. Even the large tent in which I'd just finished AN HOUR-LONG SHOW. So I put the hoodie back on.
Kicked a girl out of a tent I drunkenly convinced myself was mine and then tried to kill her stuffed pink hippo, which I was convinced was trying to trample me.
Some might argue it was one particularly poorly received performance of a 2016 show where I performed to silence. But probably the time I got really drunk at an industry party and kept calling people by the wrong names (I am bad enough with names and faces when I'm sober) and not realising why they were ignoring me.
One of us did the show drunk. We said, "don't turn up drunk again" , they said: "When you think I'm drunk, or when I think I'm drunk"? Have a guess.
Host a music event and use the phrase "Give it up and give it loud". Friends still remind me of it.
A few of us once got together and ritually sacrificed a reviewer while wearing robes and chanting. It was a ThreeWeeks reviewer so didn't even make the local news.
A few years ago I performed at a festival for gingers. It was a weird place full of childhood bullying experiences and sun cream. I told them I was not a natural redhead. Those folks had been through too much to find that funny, it turns out.
I was once added to the closing night "Best of the Fest" show at Just for Laughs in Montreal. It was the pinnacle of my career to that point. I strode confidently onto the stage, pulled the mic out of the stand and... the cord popped out. For some reason I could not get the prongs to align with the little holes (amiright, fellas?), so I stood there fidgeting with the damn thing for a 30 long seconds, as waves of humiliation washed over me. My goose was cooked before I even opened my mouth. BEST OF THE FEST, BABY!
Stayed sober. If you have to shit into a hole of shit, sleep in tarpaulin, hang out with people and listen to Scissor Sisters, you need something to take the edge off. A festival is not my natural habitat; I don't do well in crowds and don't like being anywhere that's not within an hour of my toilet.
I don't like festival toilets, so I bought this portable one called a 'Sh*t Box'. I assembled it, did my business, then the whole thing fell apart. Turned out it was just a shit box...
Apart from Edinburgh I've only ever been to one festival, and that was when I played Latitude. So the bar for "worst thing" is pretty low. I'm gonna say my set at Latitude. I talked about rimming at midday and the audience was almost entirely family/friends and parents with their children.
Emma did a student version of Marat/Sade above a bus station at Edinburgh Fringe 1987. The whole company slept in the venue and lived off snakebite and pot noodles. By the end of the run Emma was so knackered she fell asleep in the lost property cupboard - cuddled up to a stuffed sheep and some bagpipes - and missed the last show. This was fine as there was no one in the audience.
Not showering for 3 days straight. By the end of the festival I could not distinguish if the smell was coming from me or the port-a-potty I was in.
Vomited behind the drum kit then went on stage and did the gig anyway.
I trimmed my pubic hair in a restaurant toilet with a pair of kitchen scissors because i was going on a date and had forgotten to do some essential maintenance. I am still so sorry.
I took a lot of Imodium and drank a teapot full of alcohol, cough medicine, super noodles and cocaine, then destroyed a toilet.
I still feel awful about this. I was doing a student comedy show several years ago, and thought I had plenty of time to kill before a performance, so I went to see a play I had a free ticket for. I realised maybe 15 minutes in that I'd woefully - and I really mean woefully - misjudged the time, and was due on stage imminently, so would definitely have to leave this performance of Titus Andronicus. The only problem was I was on the front row, and the exit was across the stage, so during a particularly hectic moment of the show I grabbed my bag and ran across the stage to leave the venue. Selfish, horrible, miscalculated. A nightmare. I'm so sorry.
Jamie Barwood: I queued to watch Peter André.
Letitia Hector: Wet myself.
'Theatre.'
This is not the worst thing I've ever done but I was drunk one Edinburgh and thought it was a great idea to stagger over to Paloma Faith and say, "You're Paloma Faith." In case she'd forgotten who she was. She looked at me with complete contempt before saying, "Yeah, I know."
Getting up after midday.
I spent £1200 for a room in a house for a month that had a rat in the wall so I ended up sleeping on the sofa WHAT AN ABSOLUTE BARGAIN, I LOVE YOU EDINBURGH PROPERTY OWNERS YOU ARE SO GOOD AND KIND.
Had a one-night stand with a clown. Actually, can we have that gun with the bullet back [from the previous question]?
A poo in an empty biscuit tin in my shared tent and accidentally smeared some on the entrance flaps...
Charles Hindley: Eaten a pint glass for a dare.
Two years ago I did a guest spot and the host ran off with my bucket split, so I tried to get him banned from every comedy club in Scotland. But the worst thing I did was last year - I did the same spot and he nicked my cash again. This year I'm going for the trifecta.
I appeared in a terrible children's show at the 2012 Fringe. I could see little frowns appearing on the kids faces as they realised "This is what Mum and Dad mean when they say someone's 'taking the piss'"
I once performed at a hippy festival (do people use the word hippy anymore? There was lots of hemp, basically) - we were in a tent, the audience sat on bales of hay. One adult man had just won a dartboard set in a raffle, got incredibly drunk (success can do that to you) and started throwing the darts at me. He then walked past me, outside the tent, began urinating on the side of it, we could see the shadow of his penis (great band name), so I decided to run outside and push him over. Best reaction from anything in my set that day. I hope he's alive.
In 2013, I performed at a late night show at the Free Sisters, VERY drunk. I started one joke and ended it by repeating a joke I had already said. I do not ever drink before performing. Out of character and embarrassing!
Left Glastonbury to go to Mumford and Sons' private party: A picnic table in the dark with someone's iPhone playing quietly on it. We repeat... Mumford and Sons.
Gave a standing ovation to an act just because other people were doing it.
I went out to the Hive one night and stayed until 5am because I'd heard a rumour that you got a t-shirt that said "I survived the Hive 'til five".
It was not true.
At Reading 2008 we walked past a large group of 'lads' with a beer funnel. They goaded a friend of ours into joining them for a funnel in front of an inexplicably large crowd. Nervously he accepted the invitation and guzzled it down so nobly that it wasn't until after swallowing it all that he realised it was urine. Everyone laughed. He went home.
A man named Scott (named changed for his protection).
Danced naked. Not a pretty sight.
Kirsty: I did a wee on the National Theatre lorry.
I told comedian Daniel Sloss I was gonna knock him out at the Loft Bar (Assembly) a few years back - I had ruptured my Achilles tendon and was on crutches, he barged into me and told me to watch where I was going...It was definitely a joke... He definitely does not remember... I definitely could not knock him out, with or without the crutches.
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