Edinburgh Day 6 (8/3)
Today would be the start of our first “weekend” on the trip. This means that a couple of cast members who have been continuing to work their day jobs get a welcome reprieve. Hence, several of us went out to a brunch together before taking a walking tour in Old Town Edinburgh.
Brunch was at a place called Loudon’s, across from the new Scottish Parliament building, and it was delicious. I had a peri-peri chicken dish (just the right amount of spicy for this wimpy-paletted author), but the pancakes, full Scottish (vegan!) and espresso martinis elsewhere on the table all looked and smelled fabulous.
After brunch we made our way to the Royal Mile. We had a few minutes to kill before meeting our tour, so we stopped to use the restrooms and get coffee from a nearby shop, and then also went into a whiskey seller’s. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it’s definitely only a matter of time.
Then, it was time to meet with our tour guide, Niamh, and brave the wild crowds on the Mile. It turns out, of course, that our guide is also a performer, and is in a show as well during the Fringe. She was terrific, and did a great job of finding us quiet places to congregate as she told us about the various landmarks and history of the area, including Market Cross, St. Giles Cathedral, the monument to David Hume and more. Unfortunately I was scheduled to work a shift giving out flyers for our show this afternoon, so I left the tour before it finished, and headed into New Town Edinburgh to get prepared for that.
Our flyering setup has two major components - the flyers themselves of course, and a small temporary tattoo depicting the ‘bone fiddle’ that features in the song Twa Sisters (Dreadful Wind and Rain) from the show. The folks that previously worked flyers shifts apparently had good success setting up in some of the outdoor bar areas, offering folks tattoos and talking up the show and handing out flyers while the tattoos were applied, so my plan was to try the same.
Sadly, I met with…less…success using this approach. Maybe being a lone, strange man walking around offering odd tattoos was a bad choice in hindsight. Next time it will be a different approach.
After flyering, I went back to the house for a quick workout and dinner before trekking back into town for preview #2. The show is starting to feel like we have a good rhythm, and this performance went well. We only had perhaps 8 souls in the house, but a few were complete strangers, drawn in by some flyering done in days prior, so that felt like a small success. Post-show several of us shared a drink in the lobby bar.
Tomorrow - our only Sunday show!
