AliceFraser

Edinblog Day 16, 17, 18: Bin Strikes and Saturday Nights. Quiet parts and loud parts.

I think Friday night audiences may have redeemed themselves for me - I’ve always been a fan of the Thursday night audience, but I have to say this year they’ve trended a little bit sitting-back-you-do-the-work-theatre-type-crowds, while Friday nights (often on the angry/tired vibe side) have been a genuine delight.

Bear in mind when I talk about the vibe or mood of a audien...

Edinblog Day 13, 14, 15: time compression

Wednesday we did the first All Live Gargle!

Here are three variously hungover, periody and recently bitten exhausted Festival humans. (Fun game, guess which is which! Bonus points for the one who has a boob rash - listen to the episode to find out!!!) For a project that sta...

Salon Details for today

Today’s Zoom Salon will be at 1pm U.K. time (or your local equivalent)

Tea With Alice Salon 71

Time: Aug 17, 2022 01:00 PM London

Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82189320186

The LIVE salon will be at 2...

Edinblog Day 11 & 12: Day Off, and Day NOT OFF. Plus postponing 2pm live Salon today til 2pm tomorrow. (And reasons)

Last night after a relaxing day off, I got a message from my U.K. Agent saying Have I Got News For You is running auditions in London this week and would you be up for a day trip to london before your show tomorrow.

So after a night of MINIMAL SLEEP (it’s almost like babies can sense when you’re unsettled - this is a joke. Babies are the most finely tuned vibe-ometers know...

Edinblog Day 8-10: what are days anyway?

Day 8: Friday

Today’s the end of the first week, but the second Friday I’ve performed the show. I’m looking forward to it, because in my head the ‘first’ (second) Friday is the point at which the show is what it’s going to be for the rest of the run. Barring epiphanies, it’s just going to be me finding more little jokes in the show, rather than any big structural ...

Edinblog Day 7: how did I lose two days?

My goodness. Wednesday was an absolutely wild day.

The internet was so slow it wasn’t even letting me send texts on messaging apps, and I was facing down the barrel of both a Salon and a Gargle. I pulled the salon (sorry!), but the gargle employs a number of people, so I couldn’t just take away their work for the day. Which meant a frantic scramble to find a place that was both quiet...

Salon today Cancelled

Im sorry gang! The wifi here is too bad for video calls, and I have to stick close to home. Next week I will be able to do it from the artist’s bar in the pleasance, which apparently has good wifi. Massive apologies.

Xxx

A

Edinblog Day 4: half price Monday

The audience tonight was lovely and full and I was so tired I barely kept my tongue working. Not to complain about being tired, but them’s the facts ma’am. Last night I thought, the show’s working okay, and I’m in Edinburgh! I should go home and feed laser after the show and then actually get out of the house and be social for once! I will meet up with Tiff at the Gilded Balloon Artistâ...

Edinblog Day 3: Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

This music shop has a travel sized five string banjo that I go in and look at every day, thinking maybe this would fit into my suitcase and solve all my problems. Next time I’ll bring a tape measure, I think to myself.

Last night’s show flew! Which was a relief, though of course you’d rather the loudly appreciative audience on the night the reviewer was in. Though that said, who car...

Edinblog: Day 2

Last night was hard work too! I’m glad I’ve run this show a bunch before bringing it to edinburgh, or I’d be starting to worry now. Something about delivering your jokes to a smiling silence makes you doubt everything. You tune into your own cadences and start to feel the words in your mouth. Am I still speaking English? Are these jokes?

Is it me? Is it the lighting? The space? Som...

Edinblog day 1: Opening Night

Last night’s last preview was a disaster. Just a nice quiet smiling audience slowly sapping my confidence in the show as noise bleed from the nearby rooms filled the empty space where laughs should have been. But it’s opening night tonight! Good to go in hungry. And the telegraph is in, and another reviewer. So that’s nice.

Generally I’m biased against Friday night aud...

Tea With Alice Salon 69 Link

Tea With Alice Salon 69

Time: Aug 5, 2022 01:00 PM London

Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82107188835

Edinblog Day Minus 1

I officially open on Friday, but had a preview last night (Wednesday), and will have another tonight. Then a reviewer from the telegraph in on Friday, so I guess I better brush the rust off quick!

I alternate being really pleased with this show - I like it a lot - with feeling like if I broke it apart and put it back together I would find something better. But I don’t have time, and it...

On the train again: Checklists

I’m on the train en route to Edinburgh, with the anticipation of (I assume) a gladiator entering the ring after a year (or two) of sharpening their weapons.

I’ve bought a couple of HEPA filters for my room in the Gilded Balloon, in the hope that’ll make things a little safer and more comfortable for my audience. It reminds me of my first edinburgh where I was in a room with a curta...

Fringe Content: Pre-Fringe Advice Opinion Column 1

Someone on Twitter asked for Fringe Advice for Artists who might not be selling many tickets. Here are some of my thoughts.

It’s entirely legitimate to think of the Edinburgh Fringe as a rapacious monster eating all of your money and talent, in which case, I would suggest not going. There are plenty of things about the fringe that are too expensive, unfair, exhausting. If yo...

Salon link for today ALL LEVELS

Tea With Alice Salon 68

Time: Jul 27, 2022 01:00 PM London

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89765445994

My ten favourite…

I haven’t got PR at the Fringe this year, because I think the landscape of publicity has changed so much that I sort of don’t think anyone knows what they’re doing.

As such I can’t really afford to blow thousands of pounds for someone to be figuring out what the New World looks like and how you can boost an act in an environment where there are fewer and fewer reliable publicity ...

Bodies bodies bodies and salon date…

Hallo!

Tonight is my only central London show of CHRONOS before I head to edinburgh this (!)* weekend. Doing a split preview with Laura Davis, so it’ll be a lovely night. I think tickets are heading towards all sold out, so if you’re thinking of coming, don’t necessarily expect to get one on the door.

Laura and I went on a friend date to see Daniel Kitson doing an outdoor gi...

Salon 67 Link

Tea With Alice Salon 67

Time: Jul 14, 2022 01:00 PM London

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81543947481

What Trigger Warnings Should I Have?

One of the venues I’m doing a performance at this week has sent this very lovely and sensitive message through and it’s thrown me into a bit of a tizzy. As the subject of trigger warnings comes forcibly round into my brain again, I should warn you, i’m about to discuss it.

Weaponised by the culture wars, at various times it’s seemed reduced to the conflicting cartoon i...

This Week’s Gigs

The live salon was genuinely lovely, and everything I could have hoped. A bunch of really nice people talking about things over tea. All of them have bodies that continue below their collarbones and sides and backs to their heads, too! Which I’d assumed but until today would not have been able to guarantee.

This week’s gigs are a very mixed bag. My favourite one will be Tuesday in Ma...

London: In Person Salon Sat 9 July

Just a reminder for whoever’s around I’ll be hanging out drinking tea tomorrow from

1pm at the

Mei Leaf Teahouse

99 Camden High St, London, NW1 7JN, England

Today’s Tea With Alice Salon 65 Link

Tea With Alice Salon 65 will be an ALL LEVELS salon if you’re free.

Mainly because I’m doing the live in person salon this Saturday, so I feel like that will already be limited to the people who can come IRL? So by having this one open it seems more fair?

I don’t know, I don’t have a system for which ones are open and which ones are for the higher...

D’Ancey LaGuarde Literary Tribute Competition: Winners and Runners Up.

Hallo all!

It’s done! It’s complete! The inaugural D’Ancey LaGuarde Literary Tribute Competition is complete and this year’s winners have been selected!

This was a rough judging process. I had failed to factor in a few things, and weirdly this time, none of the things I’d failed to consider were the normal things I fail to consider - how much longer everything...

Backstage Bants and Salon 65

On Thursday night I was in Oxford MCing a gig in the taproom of a brewery, which is to say… a large echoing warehouse with menacing big vats that smells like hops, and then a weird island of craft beer styled lights and tables.

Backstage, I had an experience I haven’t had for a while, and in recognising and remembering it, realised that it’s been a while. A familiar sens...

Live Tea With Alice Salon

Hallo! I’ll be hanging out at

Mei Leaf Tea House Camden

For an hour or so, starting at 1pm London time

9 July 2022

Do join me. All Patreonites welcome.

Let me know if you’re coming!

See you there if you can make it.

Xx

A

This week’s Gigs

Abingdon

Thursday 30th June [tomorrow!]

Venue: Loose Cannon Brewery Taproom, Unit 6, Suffolk Way, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 5JX

Set: Lineup Show

Show starts 7:30pm

Tickets Here

Leeds

Saturday 2 Ju...

Salon 64 Details

Tea With Alice Salon 64

Time: Jun 29, 2022 03:00 PM London

Link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85080395331

Oh man, how has it been a whole week since last week? + Salon 64 Details

I have been reading the D’Ancey LaGuarde Literary Tribute Competition submissions (I said I’d give out the prize at the end of this month!) and they are so funny. So many of them are truly hilarious and well written and even the ones that are a bit rough around the edges have some superb lines. I really don’t know how I’ll decide.

What I have decided is that I’ll defi...

Postparting experiment

Hallo! This is likely to be a disaster given the state of my short term memory at the moment (upsettingly non-existent, like a missing mental muscle-set. I reach for what I was about to say, or what I knew I was meaning to do, and it’s just a blank. This is the main symptom of the ongoing broken sleep. I’m probably getting more or less enough hours of sleep, just never in stretch...