Tidemark Edinburgh Fringe Experience 2004
Friday 6 August 2004 Preview day 2 and things continue to go well for 'Odysseus and the Really Freaky Monsters with an audience of nearly 70, including, although we didn't know it at the time, the Scotsman reviewer and her tribe of small children! The Scotsman is the national newspaper for Scotland and during the Festival is the main source of reviews for Fringe shows to help inform audience choice. The newspaper has a huge team of reviewers each seeing several shows a day for the duration of the Fringe. Getting your reviewer in early on in the run and hopefully receiving a favourable review can make all the difference to how well a show sells. The reviewer grades each show using a star rating from 0 (stay at home and watch the Olympics) to 5 stars (kill for a ticket). With over 1500 shows to review, competition is fierce and getting your reviewer in still doesn't mean that it will get into print quickly. If a show is really unlucky, a review may not be published until after the final performance or sometimes not at all. Watch this space for news about 'Odysseus'. Meanwhile, over in the Pleasance Courtyard, one of the 'Delicates and Smoke' props has kept the staff on their toes. In 'Smoke', Greg played by Roger Bartlett, is preparing to give a fire safety talk to a local WI group. In his talk he demonstrates a smoke alarm. Unfortunately, the technical staff in our space hadn't realised that the smoke alarm would be sounded during the performance and when the first ear-splitting beeps filled the air, there was a flurry of frantic activity to avert a full-scale evacuation of the Courtyard! Oops!
Rebecca will be reporting on Tidemark's experiences throughout this year's Festival. Come back to see how she's doing! Are you taking a production to Edinburgh this year? Do you want to tell the world about it? If so, let us know by emailing threecounties@bbc.co.uk | 
