The diary of Edinburgh Fringe 2003
photo by C.Matsumura

Aug,11
It took 31 hours from Japan to Edinburgh via Singapore. We finally checked in the hotel just past noon of the next day. Then we headed to the venue to say hello to the producer, Julian and all other staff members. Thanks to his arrangement, the artcle of Kakushow was listed in the Flinge Guide magazine.And advance tickets of the first performance were sold out.. We heard many media people would come to see the first three performances out of four. We really thak you, Julian , for accepting all our detailed conditions such as the base on the stage.
Relaxed with an Engish news paper in hands though can't read it..	With all staff members at Heathrow airport.
Strumbled across my poster in front of the venue.	Everyone listens carefully to the notes and instructions.

Aug 12th (the first day of the performances)
A rehearsal from early in the morning. As other groups have shows just before and after ours, we have to prepare and clean up the stage in 10 min. between the shows. We borrowed 4 wooden tables from the theatre from Chicago and 3 tables from the venue to set up the stage for sit down comedy. It was a much tougher work than we thoght.. After practicing several times, we got the hang of it.. Planned 2 hour rehearsal including light and sound arrangements was over before we knew it.. In the afternoon we handed out the flyers in the main street in the Japanese sandwich man's style. This was well received especially among children.
How do you like the Japanese sandwich men?We were more often asked pictures than distributing flyers.	Getting into the venue.
Looking at the artcle of magazine posted on the bulletin board in the venue.	This is the leaflet the venue published.
Setting up the stage went off without a hitch though we still concerned it. The memorable first day's curtain rose at pm6:10. We heard some tickets sold on the day of performance were also sold out. It was a full house beyond reproach.Tonight's performances consist of "the demmonstration of sit down comedy" ,the cominc story telling "ZOO"、"paper cutting art"、and slap stick eco-comedy "Alice In Wonderplanet". Audiens seemed to enjoy my show and Julian and other comedians talked to us happily. We got off to a flying start..

Aug 13th (the 2nd day of the performances)
We had posted so many flyers on columns from early in the morning .The main street, called The Royal Mile, was a pedestrian mall during the festival. There are clumns you can post advertisements on the both sides of the street.. At first, we strated off hesitantly somehow and we found that no matter how hard we poted, all flyers were gone in 2 hours because other groups posted on the top of ours. Finally we got a strategy to get through the system. Now we are skillful enogh to live on posting flyers.
This is the main street.. It's busy even in the morning.	We franticaly posted at first.
On hour later. What happened?All but the bottom were gone.	They are surviving somehow.
The sandwich men was still well received. The flyers designed by Mr. K.Matsuda were also so catchy that many people who received gave us questions about the description, when and how long, some goers glanced at the flyers stopped and came back to take them, which made us feel so happy. We were relieved it was a crowd-out for 2 straight days. Setting up and cleaning up gets more smoothly than yesterdasy.

Aug 14 （The tird day）
The review of the show was on "The SCOTS MAN". We heard the rumor that the newspapers of UK tend to critisize severely if the show isn't good. We saw the review timidly. Our anxiety turned out to be in vain. The content of review was much better than we thought.. When I handed flyers on the street, a woman came close and said "We went to the box office and they said no more tickets here. Where else can we buy it.?" We've had full-crowd audience three days in arow. And we saw apparently more and more families in the audience. This must be the effect of the review.
Tikcet,please.	The communication to the audience got smoother day by day.
Conveying the story with pantomaim.	There were more young women than we expected.
We recomposed the show and adopted pantomime and the bamboo blind entertainment.. The first day's nervousness was totally behind me. Every ad-libs hit the point.. After the performance, we got an offer from the company in South Africa for The Earth Festival 2004. Needless to say, we got exited talking about what happened today in the pub over many kinds of beer, lager, guiness and half&half...completly forgot we still have one performance tommorrow.

Aug 15( final day)
Today's performance was decided to broadcast on the internet., which means you can see my show anywhere in the world. I tried to tell all of my friends in Japan but couldn't. Because the starting time here in UK is 2:00 am in Japan. Today is also the last day for preparing flyers and the stage. A staff member started portraits when handing out the flyers. Many of those who were intersted in gatered and two sketch books he had were gone before he knew it.. The better-than-expected result of past three days, a bit of relaxation coming from the assurance that I came to know the funny point in English performance and the pressure of live webcast made us confortably serious.
Sorry to keep you waiting for a long time.	This is a ticket.
The very last moment.	The producer was very glad to our performance.
To be honest, we had the worst turnout at first today. It was only about half of capacity at the time of opeing. More and more people were coming and we saw full crowded audience in 10 minutes as usual. We appreciated the customers who were interested in the Japanese comedian so much who has no experience and achievement in the UK. And I realized that this is the attarctive aspect of the Fringe that keeps the top of the comedy festival in the world.