Fringe Diaries #7: Mace and Burton
Mace and Burton (left to right...)
It’s almost over. The third week of the busiest three weeks of my year is nearly at a close. And what an amazing three weeks it is every year. Last year’s Fringe ended in a pretty special way…
The evening after our final performance of Rom Com Con, my friends and I went on a celebratory bar crawl. Despite performing every day in a comedy show all about finding true love and having a sell-out run it had become a running gag that I hadn’t been on a single date. My friends had all told me it’d be a certainty; perform at the Fringe and you will get a date! I hadn’t, and although I’d had a great Fringe, I was ready to get home to Cambridge and finally rest. I was leaving in around 36 hours so it wasn’t long to wait. We began our bar crawl in Dragonfly, the Apex International bar, then Biblos on Chambers Street…
I went up to the bar to order the next round. The guy serving me took my order and then said: “Hey! Aren’t you that girl in that show?” I replied: “You could say that to any girl in a bar during the Fringe and you’d probably be right!”
It turned out we’d met in that very bar during our first week when I’d liked our waitress enough to compliment her to the manager on duty – him. At that first meeting, I’d given him a flyer and encouraged him to bring the staff to see Rom Com Con.
I asked him whether he had come to see the show. He hadn’t. I teased him for not bothering. He asked how the Fringe had been for me. I said it’d been great: we’d had a huge success with our show – 4 and 5 star reviews, a sell-out run, standing-room only for almost all performances and lots of industry interest. But it was bittersweet because I hadn’t had any dates. I rejoined my friends at the table.
When the waitress came to take my food order I asked for “The seafood salad, a Strawberry Kiss Martini and the bartender’s number please!” My friends all laughed. But when she returned she not only held my drink but also his handwritten name and number! As I left the bar I gave him my card and a smile. Later that night he texted me: was I was still free the following night and in need of a date? The next evening we spent 12 hours together, chatting, visiting terrific bars like Villager and Jazz Bar, walking around the city and having The Best Date I’d Ever Had. Then I drove back to Cambridge.
We stayed in touch, had our second date in York (roughly equidistant from Cambridge and Edinburgh) and I ended up visiting Edinburgh a lot more than I had expected before the end of the year. He did eventually see our show – at our ‘Fresh From The Fringe’ performances in London in October.
He hadn’t seen us perform in the city he lived in when we were around the corner from his workplace, but he travelled to the other end of the country to see Rom Com Con!
It must be a good show if people are willing to travel that far.
‘Mace and Burton: Rom Com Con’ will be at The Canons’ Gait until 26th August at 1.15pm as part of the Free Fringe. ‘Mace and Burton: Heartbreak Hotel’ will be at Buffs Club, West Register Street, tomorrow at 7.30pm. Also free.
