Holly Williams chats to triple Eddie nominee Russell Kane about growing up in a castle (of sorts), celebrating his birthday at the Fringe and his tips for surviving the Festival.
Being on tour can be tough – and Edinburgh regular Russell Kane knows the festival
can particularly take its toll, groaning about the “sheer exhaustion” that comes with doing several shows every day for a month.
“I went up for the first time in 2005, and I’ve been every year since then. Last year, when I was doing two shows a day – a play in the afternoon and a stand-up gig in the evening – my eye was twitching so bad I couldn’t even concentrate on the shows. I’m quite looking forward to only doing one show a day this year!”
And that one show might provide him with a comforting taste of home too: his 2010 show, Smokescreens and Castles, is “all based around the house I grew up in”. Sounds nice – but did he really live in a castle, I hear you ask? Not quite.
“My dad bought his council house, and then he added extensions and even a swimming pool round the back, which the neighbours really were not happy about,” Kane explains. “They used to call it ‘The Castle’, so that’s where the name comes from. The show is basically me going round each room in that house.”
Eye-twitching exhaustion aside, Kane – like most comedians – does have a certain fondness for the festival. For one thing, it’s where he’s celebrated his birthdays for the last five years.
“It’s my birthday in August, so I’m always onstage for it. One year, I was part of a show, and my mum had come up, because it was on my birthday. But it had a vile audience, a really nasty, vile audience; they were throwing coins at comics to get them off the stage. But I went out there and turned the room around, I got a really good response – and my mum was watching. So that was a high point for me.”
And dealing with a dodgy audience is obviously a useful skill to have at the festival, where the crowds can really change from show to show. “As a stand-up you’ve got to be a shallow chameleon – you’ve got to be able to adapt,” he explains. “At Edinburgh, at the weekend, they’re a party crowd: they just want to drink and unleash themselves on you. In the week, it’s a bit more of an arty crowd, they come looking for something surreal or cerebral.”
I ask Kane to share his advice for how to get the most out of the Edinburgh experience. “For performers: try to stop drinking before sunrise,” is his sage wisdom. “You do have to alter your watch - Edinburgh is in a different time zone. You get up at four in the afternoon, and go to bed at four in the morning.”
And for visitors? “Don’t think it will be this wacky festival where you’ll just happen to see lots of great stuff. You’ve got to plan it like Rainman – or it will all fall apart.”
Plan a bit of Russell Kane into your festival schedule - he’ll be
performing Smokescreens and Castles at Pleasance Courtyard at 9:10pm from 7-30th August
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