The confirmation that I'm definitely ill came yesterday. We were walking on the flat and I had to ask Martin to slow down. Martin has one joint left in his feet so we can only conclude I am a bit virusy and frustratingly I certainly feel it. Early nights, afternoon trying to sleep it off. This was not the Fringe I was hoping for. I was hoping to be really ill for the last ten days, for crying out loud.
Later, though, I had a bit of a treat. I was crossing the Royal Mile when I saw three people, sitting on the steps of a church, gripped. They looked like a family group, tired, surrounded by bags and festival paraphernalia. Not from the UK, I don't think, Mediterranean maybe. They were clearly watching theatre so fantastic that it transcended cultural and linguistic boundaries. I followed their gaze, excited to see what was mesmerising them. There were two guys standing by a drain on the lovely Royal Mile, one of them on the phone and clearly wiping himself up a bit having thrown up into the drain, and, inevitably, around the drain. I looked back at the family group and they were still under the spell of Mr Chunder (this was 8pm, by the way, not part of the midnight throw-fest).
Since this little sequence I have been considering what I'm up against as an actor/storyteller of a big story from my life - nothing is as fascinating as
someone being sick, live, in the street, unaware that they are being watched. Or similar. And this chap was doing it for free.
Maybe it was a piece of performance art illustrating the intersection of technology with the base biological function of Homo Sapiens, in a world that never sleeps, where we can have anything delivered to our faces at pretty much any time of the day, there is no escaping the biological clock and the rhythm of flesh and blood... or something...
ReplyDelete...or maybe he just had a dodgy burger at lunch.