My Festival friends

Lots of Edinburgh Festival posts on my Facebook timeline at the moment.

This is partly because several Facebook ‘friends’ are in Edinburgh this month, while two are performing one-man shows on the Festival Fringe.

Guy Masterson is an actor who, when he isn’t appearing on stage, is producing or directing shows all over the globe.

Mike Hatchard is a talented jazz pianist who first appeared on the Fringe in the guise of his comic alter ego, Marvin Hanglider.

Thirty years ago I worked with both of them on several shows and concerts in London.

The one I remember with most affection was the first, a variety show that took place at the BBC Concert Hall in October 1994.

Auditions took place two months earlier at the Questors Theatre in Ealing, west London, which was where our stage manager worked as a volunteer.

I was producing the show and Mike and Guy were directing as well as performing, so they chose the line-up based on what they saw and heard.

The auditions were similar to Britain’s Got Talent, but very much smaller and without an audience. Performers included musicians, singers, comedians, magicians, a children’s entertainer, and a ventriloquist.

A few were semi-professional and had experience of performing live, but most were amateurs, some more talented than others.

It wasn’t hard to spot the difference so the performers chosen to appear in the show pretty much picked themselves, although we did treat ourselves to one or two wild cards.

Located within Broadcasting House in central London, the BBC Concert Hall is now called the BBC Radio Theatre, but I don’t think much else has changed.

Opened in 1934, ‘this iconic art deco setting hosts daily concerts, variety shows and comedy acts for TV and radio in front of a live audience’.

I remember the auditorium had 300 seats because after the single advertised show sold out, we added a matinee performance and that sold out too.

The problem was, with an afternoon show, we now had less than five hours to rehearse, and a dress rehearsal was out of the question because most of the available time had to be devoted to sound checks for each performer and getting the lighting right.

As for practising entrances to cues provided by the MC (Mike Hatchard) … forget it!

Fortunately, Mike and Guy knew what they were doing, and we had an experienced stage manager plus a BBC sound engineer on board, so both shows went pretty well.

We even recorded them, using the BBC’s in-house recording equipment, and subsequently released a cassette featuring the best performances by the musical acts.

The ventriloquist, sadly, didn’t make the cut. Nor did the ‘comedians’, one of whom - in showbiz parlance - ‘died’, but most of the acts, amateur and professional, acquitted themselves very well.

The singers and musicians were particularly good. Sadly, although I still have one of the cassettes, I no longer have a cassette player to play it on!

But back to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In the Nineties I lived in Edinburgh for six years so it was inevitable that I’d bump into Mike and Guy when they were performing on the Fringe, and I did. I even went to several of their one-man shows.

After we left Edinburgh and returned south, however, I lost contact with them until, years later, we became Facebook friends.

Mike is currently writing a memoir and what I assume are excerpts have been appearing on Facebook this week.

They are a reminder that appearing on the Fringe can be a tough experience at times because audiences can often be counted on the fingers of one hand (two if you’re lucky).

That was my experience as well, not only when we lived in Edinburgh, but long before that, when I was a student in the late Seventies and went to quite a lot of shows.

One year (1978, I think), I spent a week in Edinburgh for the Festival, staying in a friend’s flat off South Clerk Street in the Old Town.

At that time my main criticism was that Fringe venues were allocated on a first-come first-serve basis. In practise, it meant that some very good productions could find themselves in a church hall miles from the city centre playing in front of six or seven people.

In contrast, some truly dreadful shows might attract several times that, not because they were better but because they had a more convenient location.

In 1979, when I returned to the Fringe for a few days, I remember watching a truly dire sketch show, performed by students from Aberdeen University, and while the cast (several of whom I knew) appeared to be enjoying themselves, the same couldn’t be said of the audience.

On the other hand it’s clear, reading their Facebook posts, that Mike and Guy continue to love the Edinburgh experience.

So here we are, in 2024, and Guy has just celebrated his 30th Edinburgh Fringe (and last as a producer) with the final Fringe performances of his two most popular one-man shows, Under Milk Wood and Animal Farm.

First performed in Edinburgh in 1994 and 1995 respectively, Guy has subsequently performed both shows over 2,000 times each around the world. Quite an achievement.

Funnily enough, the last time I was in Edinburgh for the Festival, in 2015, I bumped into Guy quite by chance on the street.

I hadn’t seen him for over 15 years but I recognised him immediately and it was great to catch up.

Mike is in Edinburgh too this year, for the first time in eight years, attempting to set a series of world records for playing the piano (and singing) while upside down. (Don’t ask.)

But don’t be fooled by such stunts. Mike has worked with some wonderful singers and musicians, including the great Herbie Flowers who famously came up with the bass line for Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, for which he was allegedly paid £12 (and no royalties).

It must be 25 years or more since I last met Mike, but social media is a strange beast. Following someone online, and reading their posts, makes you feel you know them quite well, even when you don’t.

If and when Mike does publish his memoir I’ll be one of the first to buy a copy. Expect lots of name-dropping - Caroline Quentin, Graham Norton, Bill Bailey, Phil Jupitus, Lee Mack, Eddie Izzard, and Paul Merton to name a few - but, as Mike says, it’s hardly name-dropping when ‘none of them were known at all when I met them’.

Meanwhile, if you’re in Edinburgh, do go and say hello. You’ll find him at Carbon on Cowgate from 4.45-5.45pm until Sunday (August 25). As he writes on Facebook, ‘Do come along and humour me and give me something to write about in future years.’

See also: Fringe benefits (Taking Liberties, August 2015)
My Festival: Guy Masterson (Scotsman, August 12, 2024)

PS. Also on the Festival Fringe for a few more days is Simon Evans presents: Alas, Smith and Hume! and Footnotes to Smith.

Simon is not a Facebook friend (I don’t know if he is even on Facebook) but I do follow him on X.

More important, he gave a very funny speech/performance at the Forest Summer Lunch last year.

After Edinburgh he will be touring the UK from September 27 through to March. Warmly recommended.

Below: Simon Evans at the 2023 Forest Summer Lunch