Tape 150: "Work In Progress"

Or; How To Delay Your Anxiety Attack By Six Months

A few years ago John Kearns and I invented a game. The way the game worked was that you ranked the years of your life from best to worst, then used their position in the ranking as numerical data points to plot them on a graph. You would then plot a line between all the data points on the graph and then you would look at it, and that was the game. The reason it was fun was because the line was the shape of your life. You could look at it and think things like “Oh yeah, that was a terrible time” or “That was a great year. What happened to years like that?” You could compare your graph to a friend’s and make fascinating discoveries like “Hey, look, while you were having the best year of your life, I was having my worst,” or “Wow, we both put 2013 sort of in the middle, isn’t that weird?” I thought it was a really fun game and spent a bit of time playing it with everyone I knew, and I noticed that comedians thought it was amazing and people who weren’t comedians thought it was an obnoxious waste of time.

“Wow, look at that, it’s the arc of my story,” the comedians would say, obsessed with anything that rendered their lived experience into a visible shape they could show to other people and talk about.

“How am I supposed to remember what different years are like?” the people who weren’t comedians would say. “Years are just years. They just pass. I guess I went on that nice holiday last year. Maybe that puts it at, I dunno…three?”

If I’m completely honest, I found both types of response vaguely depressing, and shelved the game. We came up with it at Christmas 2019, and in hindsight I think it’s very funny that we invented it immediately before the entire world was gripped by a deadly pandemic, and the universe gave us all something to really worry about (prior to the pandemic, one of the lowest-ranking years of my life received that honour because the boss I was working for at the time was a bit annoying and I didn’t go to as many live music gigs as I would’ve liked, so maybe in some ways the pandemic was a necessary shake-up to lift me out of my apathetic existence).

I mention all this because at that time one of the key indicators I used as a yardstick to remember what each year was like was what my experience of the Edinburgh Fringe had been that year. Each show was like a diary entry, my emotional experience of the Fringe itself like a lightning rod reminding me of the emotional landscape of the wider year. I don’t feel like this any more, and tonight I’m heading up to Edinburgh to perform a show at the Fringe which, for the first time ever, I haven’t spent most of the year worrying about. I haven’t spent all year telling myself that what happens when I perform that show will decide how I feel about my life this year. I’m just looking forward to performing it, and that’s that.

I remember sitting backstage at a gig once with John and Josie Long, talking about the Fringe (I believe this was in 2016, which rated pretty highly on my graph, maybe somewhere between 2 and 5? And remember, this is the year of Brexit and Trump and all those dead celebs, so I must have gone to loads of music gigs that year, or had a really lovely boss or something). Josie was going up to do a work-in-progress run, and John asked her how she was feeling about it. She said she felt great, and that the words “work-in-progress” were like a life hack that handed her the experience of doing the Fringe, that thing we all love and care about and burden with an unreasonable amount of creative significance, but without the attendant anxiety and stress. It’s taken me another 8 years to experiment with the same thing myself, and for many months it worked like a dream.

Since 2016, I’ve taken four full, finished shows to the Fringe (2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022), which all came with the usual amount of burnout and stress alongside all the pride and excitement. I’ve spent three summers not going to the Fringe at all (2020, 2021 and 2023), all of which taught me the welcome lesson that the Fringe is not my identity, and doesn’t get to hold any definitive power over whether I have a nice summer or, indeed, year or, indeeder, life. And once I went to the Fringe in order to perform in a play, without taking a show of my own (2018), which was lovely and I’d love to do it again someday (cast me in a play, you cowards!)

Since deciding I would take a work-in-progress show to the Fringe this year for a short 3-day run, I’ve been really dining out on the carefree feeling of not needing to worry about it. I’ve been shamelessly repurposing Josie’s 8-year-old thoughts on the matter whenever anyone asks me how I’m feeling about the show. “Really good, actually,” I’ve been saying, “it’s almost as if the words “work-in-progress” are a sort of…how do I put this…a sort of life hack? That lets you experience the Fringe free from anxiety? That’s how it seems to me, anyway, now you put me on the spot, old chum.” I don’t know why I’ve always been ending with “old chum.” I think I’ve been worried that if I don’t add some words of my own into it then they’ll get suspicious, but then I never say “old chum” in my day-to-day life anyway, so it just makes the whole conversation start to feel weird. Anyway, they usually just nod with interest and say that’s great to hear, and I chuckle to myself, patting myself on the back for having once again gotten away with not needing to work out what I actually think about something.

But ultimately, it has been true for most of the year. I think about what I want to get out of the Fringe, and I don’t think of the usual career checklist and the desperation to scrabble something tangible out of the bare rock and the parched earth in order to justify the emotional and financial cost of it all. I just feel excited about sharing something I’ve made with some of the best audiences in the world. I’ve been almost too relaxed about it all, if I’m honest. I remembered too late that I needed to book my travel, and found that the trains were now so expensive that they threatened to eat into the cost-effectiveness of my trip, so I booked an overnight coach instead. “No matter,” I said to myself. “So I’ll have a bad night’s sleep. It’s just a work-in-progress.” I was so carefree that none of life’s slings, nor its famous arrows, could touch me.

Then two nights ago I had the worst anxiety dream about the Fringe I’ve ever had. I dreamt that, despite having nearly sold out the first show, it was ten minutes after the start time and only two people had shown up. The venue staff were getting annoyed and urging me to start the show. I pleaded with them to let me wait, saying I was still waiting for fifty-odd people. Half an hour later, the rest of the audience showed up, but I had forgotten to get into costume. I tried to get changed while playing some pre-show music from my iPod to keep the baying crowd entertained (and yes, in the dream I had my iPod back, but I was too anxious to celebrate this reunion with an old friend). But my iPod went onto shuffle and kept playing obscure Prince ballads which the audience vocally disliked. I kept skipping to find better songs, and they started booing. I just left a Prince ballad playing in the end, and wriggled into some sort of spandex outfit (I don’t know why, my new show doesn’t have a spandex outfit in it, nor any Prince ballads). I went out onstage to find that all but two people (a different two) had left. The rumour quickly went around the entire Fringe that only two people had come to my show. I tried to quell the rumour mill, to clarify that I’d more or less sold out, but there had been a technical issue. It was too late. The word was out that my show was bad, and nobody had come. I then saw a good comedian friend passing by and appealed to them for comfort, but then realised it wasn’t them. Then I turned around and saw them behind me, and they were outraged that I had thought somebody else was them. I apologised and said it was just the Fringe, you know, it makes you confused about who’s who. They said they thought I knew them better than that and thought I was their friend, and then turned and walked off. Then I woke up.

So tonight I’m spending eight and a half hours on a coach to go and do a work-in-progress run of a new show at the festival that no longer holds sway over my identity, and it doesn’t matter that I’m going to get a truly awful night’s sleep, because it’s no big deal, really. It’s just a work-in-progress. I don’t feel anxious or stressed about it at all. In fact, I managed to totally suppress the anxiety and stress for whole months on end, so that they finally erupted into my subconscious via a dream that left me feeling physically sick. It’s going to be so great. Do book your tickets if you’re planning on coming.

A Cool New Thing In Comedy - As I’ve mentioned here before (and as I will no doubt continue banging on about), Miranda and I are programming a second outing of Eggbox, our short-film-and-script-reading comedy showcase at the Pleasance, in October. We recently announced the first few items we’ve curated for the programme, which include short films from Luke McQueen, Aruhan Galieva, Ada Player & Bron Waugh, Alison Thea-Skot & Kat Bond, and Miranda and myself. One or two of these will be premieres of brand new work, and over the next couple of weeks we’re confirming a couple of final shorts (very exciting ones) and confirming the writers and actors for the live script-reads. I’m really proud of this night and the way we’re trying to use it to showcase the work coming out of the scripted comedy community, so do book your tickets and come along!

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most - Miranda and I have been editing our latest short, which we’ll be screening at Eggbox, and Christian Brighty and Sooz Kempner’s performances in it have given us so many laugh-out-loud moments. Sooz holding a sparkler, Christian’s face after pulling back a curtain. You’re gonna love this short, guys.

Book Of The Week - Currently reading The Beach by Alex Garland, that book that got made into that famous film. I’ve not seen the film, so don’t know what to expect from this. I’m enjoying the sense of mystery and adventure so far, although I can’t say I love the way he’s written the accents of the Thai characters.

Album Of The Week - Anchor by Alessi’s Ark. Alessi’s Ark was one of the bands/musicians/musical projects (it’s basically one person) that first made me consider the idea that folk music was good, way back in 2009 or so, when I affected disdain for almost all music that wasn’t prog rock. I’d not thought about her in years, as she’s not released a new album since 2017, but this came out last month and it’s been a joy to rediscover her. This might be my favourite of hers since her debut, Notes From The Treehuose.

Film Of The Week - Sick Of Myself. This was the film that Kristoffer Borgli made before last year’s excellent Dream Scenario. This is also excellent, and has a similar theme (the destructive obsession of worrying whether everyone is thinking about you) and a similarly twisted sense of humour, although be warned - I can’t think of many films that have made me feel as queasy and uncomfortable as this did. It’s kind of horrific. Your mileage may vary, and I don’t really want to spoil it, but just be aware that it’s nasty.

That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought and if you enjoyed this newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d hugely appreciate it! Take care of yourselves until next time,

Joz xx

PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.

PPS This week my friend Emily and I (and her baby, Alfie) walked the entire Victoria line from Walthamstow to Brixton. Here we are at the finish line: