Edinburgh Day #2 - Ladma's Drink Problem

There are a number of props which we use in our act – including a bottle of Volvic, a juicebox, a copy of the Guardian and a can of Special Brew – which we couldn’t see the point carting up from Brighton and thus decided to buy them in Edinburgh. We didn’t think sourcing any of these products would be a problem. Particularly the can of Special Brew.

Anyway, for some stupid reason we’d left acquiring these props until the day of our opening show. The first three proved relatively easy but the Special Brew proved a stubborn mistress to conquer. Everywhere we tried refused us service – Sainsbury’s, Tescos, Scot Mid, Costcutters. Each one of us tried and each one of us failed. No I.D so no sale. But we’re 23-24 years old! So what if none of us have a driving license or had brought our passport, does that mean we’re not real people who should be able to enjoy a nice can of Special Brew like everyone else? Clearly it does.

As the time of our show approached we became increasingly worried. What if the Special Brew joke was the only good one in the show? What if the whole show fell flat because of its absence? In the end we decided to approach one of the many tramps festooned across the Edinburgh landscape. We explained our predicament to a young tramp with matted hair swept across his face and asked if we could buy his can of Special Brew for £5? After intially refusing us sale because of our lack of I.D, he eventually backed-down.

“Aye, sure,” he said before downing the rest of the can and handing it over. We thanked him and beat a hasty retreat to our venue.

As for the show, we were happy with our opening night. We got 8 people in which wasn’t bad and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Someone even donated a ten pound note! Although it was a Scottish note so it doesn’t really count. We got laughs consistently – despite the small turnout – and all the rewrites worked well. We did make a few mistakes and missed a few lines but, overall, we’re pretty happy with the first day. We’ve always known numbers were going to be the biggest problem so hopefully, if we keep up the flyering and the P.R, we’ll be able to build up a bit of momentum. We’ll just have to wait and see how the audience figures look mid-week.

Dan