The high – and low – notes of life on the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe
Source: The List (Issue 686)
Date: 10 August 2011
Written by: Sharron Matthews
You know my fave place to take a nap in Edinburgh? The hill right beside the Half Price Hut on Princes Street: it is soft, it is shaded by trees and if you place yourself properly, no one can see you sobbing into your phone on a million dollar phone call to Canada … on a cell phone … from Princes Street Gardens … in EDINBURGH!
When you are a new, international performer at the Fringe, like I was just last year, and no one knows you, you have got to fill those seats. Being the performer, producer and promoter, this gal (me) had to come up with a plan.
After battling my jet lag (I know, boo hoo for me, right?), I tried my wares in the Fringe ticket
line-up for three hours on my first day. It was not going well. Not well at all – like super bad. I stuffed my sweaty-handed flyers in my bag and took off in a funk. I walked and walked (Edinburgh is freakin’ hilly) and ended up on the aforementioned hill, questioning my existence, my reasons for coming to the Fringe, the clothes that I packed (sundresses and open-toed shoes) … and then I pulled out my recently purchased cell phone and called my husband in Canada, and just cried and complained … and cried … and whined.
All the tourists were staring at me.
So what, people? Have you never seen a grown woman in a sundress (with sport socks, trainers and a hoodie) have a good cry in public?
And then I turned my head … there it was … the Half Price Hut. Like a beacon. Like a
mirage. Like a place for me to figure out how to sell my freakin’ show.
The people in this line-up, they wanted to be won over, they wanted the show before the
show, they wanted to pretend not to look at you, they wanted you to make them love you and they wanted it all for half price. Those minxes: they’re like a slutty boyfriend who you know will put out eventually, but just needs to be convinced that it’s worth the bother to take off their clothes.
Let it be said that I sold many a ticket there. I sang all of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ for one dude.
This year, I want to sell all my tickets for full price. Greedy, I know. But I’ll maybe go and
have a skanky cheat with the Half Price Hut a couple of times for old time’s sake.
Sharron Matthews Superstar: Jesus Thinks I’m Funny, Space Cabaret @ 54, 0845 557
6309, until 27 Aug (not 21), 8.05pm, £12.50 (£10.50).
All of life is here in cabaret, old chum
By Sharron Matthews
Published: 6/8/2011
Source: The Scotsman
Wherever it’s listed in the programme, Sharron Matthews thinks the genre has something for everyone (whether or not you want nudity).
LAST year I brought my show to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time, and made a vow to see as much cabaret as I could. For a Canadian gal who had been exposed only to North American cabaret, Edinburgh was an International Cabaret Candy Store – I was freaking excited.
During the first four cabarets I attended I saw eight naked people singing. An average of two naked people to a cabaret.
They didn’t start naked, they got naked as they sang and performed their cabarets. I raced back to the student flat I was renting (it smelled like the feet of 20-year-old boy) and looked up the definition for cabaret on the Google.
Cabaret, noun – entertainment held in a nightclub or restaurant while the audience eats or drinks at tables, it said. Nowhere, nowhere did the online dictionary say that the performers remove their clothes. I passed out, came to – and then I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought I had missed a naked memo.
That, my friends, was the first lesson I learned at the Edinburgh Fringe: seeing a cabaret means you might see someone’s private parts while they sing a Judy Garland song and/or while they are lip-syncing to Kylie Minogue (and aren’t, surprisingly, a drag queen). In Canada, seeing a cabaret means you might possibly, and quite accidentally, hear a jazz song. Not as dangerous as the nakedness, I know.
My brand of cabaret continues to evolve in Canada, but right now I would say we are the less sequined, earthier, yet still fabulous sister of New York cabaret. Pop songs, classic rock, R&B, funk, metal, punk, all reinterpreted. Intimate, interactive, bawdy, racy and story-driven. We are still largely undefined, which I think is thrilling.
After seeing a tonne of cabarets I learned lesson No 2: Everyone, all over the world, holds a different definition of cabaret. Meow Meow = Gothic and Old School Fabulous. Alan Cumming = New School New York. Camille O’Sullivan = Beatnik Goddess and Rock Star.
After that first day of full frontal cabaret nudity, (which I am not against, just surprised by all the nether regions) I quickly changed the branding of my show to a comedy cabaret, hoping people would understand that I would not be displaying my naked bits. (Not that they aren’t fabulous and worth a look.)
Meanwhile, because I am not a well-known artist here, I decided to sign up to perform at as many cabaret/variety shows as I could, to get bums on seats (and then out of seats as quickly as possible.) I love the variety cabaret! You can see so many artists, and if you don’t like someone, it is over blessedly quick. See Lach’s Antihoot, Gorgeous George Cabaret, Edinburgh Tonight.
Here are some of my highlights of doing cabaret last year.
Highlight 1: Watching a host come on stage to introduce their show in an outfit that I couldn’t quite figure out – and then realizing that it was a replica of a vagina, and that her head was… well, I am sure you get the picture.
Highlight 2: I ended up doing a number of these variety shows with the same entertainers. One was a comedian, who had a sitcom in the US and is quite well known there. I was putting on some lipstick in the dingy kitchen of a church where the variety show was taking place and I heard crying behind me. When I turned around it was this famous-in-the-US comedian.
I asked her if I could help her out and she just exploded. “I assumed that the people who brought me here would be promoting me! That I wouldn’t have to do all of these gigs! I have ten people in my audiences! And they don’t get me here, they don’t laugh! They just sit there and look at me. And I burst a blood vessel crying last night. And the worst thing is… do you know what it is? I didn’t know my show needed an name! I would’ve called it ‘Sold Out’ or some thing!”
And then she asked if she could borrow some of my MAC Wonderwoman lipstick.
Lesson No 3: just because you are a fancy comedian from the US (or anywhere else), don’t assume that you will be a hit. There are almost 3,000 shows, we all gotta work it, lady.
This year, for the first time, there is a cabaret section in the Fringe programme. The Fringe office contacted a number of artists, including myself, to ask what we thought of the idea. Would I advertise myself in it?
That was a tough decision. I want to hang with my cabaret brethren, but after a lot of (overly dramatic) soul-searching, I decided to put myself in the comedy section this year, as did many other artists who I would consider cabaret artists.
Look back to lesson two and remind yourself that cabaret means so many different things to so many different people. It can be confusing. Also, sadly, that word “cabaret” can scare people away. Last year, while flyering the Fringe line-up, I heard a lot of “That’s not what I’m looking for” when I asked ticket buyers if they wanted to see a cabaret, but then if I put the word “comedy” in front they would listen – even though it would still be the same show. I didn’t change it, just changed the way I sold it. But I am, and will always be, a cabaret artist.
Who am I Iooking forward to this year, you might ask? Evelyn Evelyn, the world’s first conjoined twin musical duo (starring Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls and Jason Webley); Pistol and Jack, listed (in the comedy section) as cabaret mash-up artists, and Eat Your Heart Out, because it looks naughty, and after last year I would be sad if I didn’t get to see a bit of naughty flesh. I do quite enjoy it really, in my own Canadian way.
Finally, remember Lesson No 4: There are no freakin’ rules. See all the cabaret you can! Who knows what amazing artists you might discover? And you just might see some skin, people.