Scotsman centre spread & a defence of flyering

Grab a copy of The Scotsman today for big feature on Hoipolloi and an interview with our Artistic Director Shon. You can click here to read online but really, I'd advise you to buy a copy in order to fully admire the big photo adorning the centre spread. We enjoyed passing it round the breakfast table this morning.

Hugh Hughes in... 360 has had another four star review, this time from The List. I think a full review will be printed in the magazine tomorrow, but click here for a truncated version in the meantime.

Today Josie and Chris, our street team stalwarts, bid farewell to flyering and start enjoying the festival as punters. They worked incredibly hard for the first week of the festival and it paid off, with sell out shows for the last four nights!

As ever, a lot of people in Edinburgh are flyering and, equally inevitably, a lot of people are moaning about it. (Mainly prima donna actors who didn't realise this was part of the deal in Edinburgh!) But I'd like to offer a defence of flyering. Because although it's tiring work, I actually really enjoy it.

Marketing a UK tour from the Hoipolloi office is a slightly imprecise science. We do our best and we normally sell pretty well but it feels very remote from the real people who come and see our work. Plus, at the end of it all, you still don't really know why someone came to see a show or didn't, or if they enjoyed it.

Flyering is the opposite and refreshingly so. I still find it funny when people ask, "Have you seen the show you're telling us about?" (Lots of flyerers work for agencies and flyer for a different show every day.) Yes, I've seen the show and yes, I'm genuinely enthusiastic about it. And it's exciting to be out and about talking to people, and passing that enthusiasm on.

Often people tell us they've enjoyed other Hoipolloi shows and are delighted to discover that we're back at the festival. I spent about twenty minutes telling one couple all about Hugh's adventures in Australia and I've bumped into a few Edward Gorey fans who are already looking forward to The Doubtful Guest. It's fantastic when the audience come into Pleasance Two and you recognise people you've spoken to during the day. And even better when they bound up to you after the show to tell you how much they've enjoyed it!

Of course, there are some less friendly people (thought they're in the minority). Josie found a woman who sat at her table, completely and utterly ignoring anyone who tried to talk to her, refusing to even acknowledge their presence until they stopped talking and went away. And Josie saw this as something of a challenge. She decided to see how long she could go for before the woman gave up and just told her to go away. A war of attrition began and I'm sad to say that Josie was outdone. But she had been standing there rabbiting away for at least fifteen minutes, which is a good effort by any standards.

Other favourite moments have included, Marieke telling someone that if they bought tickets for the show she'd marry them... at which point the man produced two tickets which he'd already bought! And Chris flyering someone who seemed quite interested but then said, "Oh, the time doesn't quite work for me. I've got badminton at six."

Marieke and I will be back out this afternoon. Do come and say hello if you see us.

And click here to book tickets for Hugh's show tonight, Pleasance Two, 7.05pm.

Hugh Hughes Edinburgh diary

Another 360 sell-out last night and four stars from Metro this morning! The review is so good that I really want to quote the whole thing. I think the line we'll end up sticking on our flyers is, "inclusive and delightfully daft, he's the favourite teacher you never had". But in truth, I prefer, "If you've ever had an existential crisis whilst staring into the eyes of a sheep, Hugh Hughes is the man for you"! Click here to read the other bits.

I mentioned in my last post that Saturday's show was unusual. I wasn't in the theatre that night but Hugh has written an account for us. Here it is:


"Saturday's show was full of strange occurrences. I met the audience as they came in. My Uncle Trevor was there, so it was nice to have a familiar face, and I met a man called Patrick, his wife Judith, two sets of twins, four Lauras and a man whose forehead I thought I recognised.

Ten minutes after that, I was walking through Llangefni when a plane flew overhead so low that the whole audience ducked. It was so loud that I had to stop the show for a moment. Even afterwards, the space was vibrating and I found myself wondering if the plane had left a stripe across the sky, so I ran outside for a moment to have a look. I think a lot of people in the audience were probably wondering too and it was easier for me to look because I was already standing up.

When I came back there was a green woman in the audience, who hadn't been there before. Then she collapsed, her neck giving way and her head toppling, first very slowly and then like the moment a rollercoaster goes over the edge. She hit her head on a gong which made a noise which rippled across the space, changing the atmosphere like flicking a switch. I stopped the show and found it quite amazing that we really were having an 'is there a doctor in the house?' moment. A woman in a nurse's uniform jumped out of the audience. She had a klaxon and a megaphone and was shouting and the noise of the plane was screaming again and before I knew it Annabelle our Stage Manager was evacuating the venue.

I thought about continuing the show outside the courtyard but there was a lot of background noise and it would have been hard to find a space. But soon Annabelle told me that the green woman was fine. She'd had a fainting spell and the nurse had said she needed air but actually she'd just got a bit hot and dizzy. She said sorry to me on the way out, even though she didn't need to, and she wasn't green anymore which was a relief.

The audience trooped back in and I went back onstage. It was weird because there was no way I could just pick up where I left off and pretend nothing had happened. But oddly, that was exactly what we all had to try and do together. The audience seemed in good spirits, after all they'd chosen to come back in and hear the end of the story! But in order to do that, it was like creating a mass amnesia where we pretended to forget that anyone had turned green. I went back to Snowdon and wondered if the woman had fainted when we were here last because she suffered from vertigo."