Eric Rushton: 800 words on grief

Written by: Eric Rushton
Published: Saturday 23rd July 2022

I'm doing the Edinburgh Fringe this summer and to promote it I've been asked to write a piece on grief. Eight-hundred words was the brief. I'll be honest, I proper CBA to do that.

I got myself into this mess. Basically, what I've gone and done is written a show about grief. It's not even about grief, really. My dad died two years ago, and I talk about that and what it made me feel (grief, I guess ?) - but I also talk about other stuff. There's a bit in there where I talk losing my virginity (arguably a bigger deal than losing a parent).

When you do the Edinburgh Fringe, you're advised to get something called PR. Packet rice? No. Well, maybe. It's busy up there and you may not have time to boil rice properly. But the PR I'm actually referring to stands for Public Relations.

You pay a fee and then a team of Suits come in and pat you down and look through your show for an "angle". Acute, obtuse, reflex - it doesn't matter. Any angle will do, if it's an angle that can be presented enticingly to the press.

The angle they've chosen for my show is grief. Again, fair enough, that is in the show. I just feel uneasy because I didn't write the material with an angle in mind. I wrote it because my dad died and, whether it's appropriate or not, it got my creative juices flowing. I started thinking of jokes about it. And the jokes kept adding up, and eventually it became a show.

That's what most comedians do, I think. That's why I like stand-up - it's not really about angles, people just go up and talk about stuff that's been bothering them.

But now that it has to be packaged into something I feel a bit down about it. Maybe that's my problem. If someone hasn't heard of you, why would they come and see you? They need that angle.

Especially nowadays when there's so much content. It's not enough to just say I'm gonna be up at the Edinburgh Fringe telling jokes for an hour. If you were the first person to do stand-up, that could be your angle. BREAKING NEWS: In an unprecedented turn of events, person decides to amplify their whimsical thoughts through a PA system.

I'm not the first person to do stand-up, though. I'm not even the first person to do stand-up about grief. It's ironically been done to death.

The Suits reckon they can work with it still. They reckon they can get coverage. Get that 'pre-Fringe buzz' going.

But the thing about 'pre-Fringe buzz' is it's not real. There're no journalists out there scouting the circuit for talent. The coverage in the press about what shows to see is all paid for. It's paid for in two ways - firstly, the act pays for a PR team that uses their connections in the media to get the act coverage. This costs anywhere between £1000-£3000.

What about all the worthwhile working-class voices that can't afford this?

No one cares, mate.

The only reason I can afford it is because my dad left a little bit of money to me when he died. The fact I'm spending it in this way means he'll be turning in his grave. Luckily, he'll now be the right way round, as we actually buried him face down, knowing that at some point one of us would do something to make him turn in his grave.

The second (and most depressing) way this buzz is paid for is that the newspapers/websites themselves will sometimes charge for the comedian to be featured, either via a paid-for Q&A or a paid-for review.

So on top of the eye-watering amount of money comedians doing the Fringe have to spend on accommodation and venue hire, they can cough up another few hundred quid to do a fake interview on a website fewer than fourteen people care about. What a great deal for the struggling artist!

But the Suits convince you if you play the game then they can turn you into a star. And there's a part of you that wants to be a star. A big, greedy part of you. And then there's also a part of you that wants to be an artist.

Those two parts are in conflict. The part that wants to be a star is very cunning. It convinces the artistically motivated part that they're on the same team. That the way to be an artist is to compromise for a bit, just until you're more known.

There's probably some truth to that. So come and see my show in Edinburgh, I will be bravely talking about grief.

Anyway, we're almost there. Two words away from eight-hundred.

Good grief.