Unusually for me, I was not at all involved with the production of my play "Party Games" for the Edinburgh Fringe while it was being rehearsed in Bath. I was safely tucked away on the other side of the country. However, I didn't want to turn down the opportunity for a holiday, and so accompanied the cast up to the Fringe. While there, I kept a diary. The following is a copy of the relevant bits (well mostly) of this diary.  

Begin the day with the worlds fastest ironing show having gone out and got drunk on Friday. I'm not packing when drunk again. I've done that before and opened my suitcase at the other end to find nothing but fifty pairs of underpants. After ironing, everything is unceremoniously screwed up and thrown into a bag. A quick demonstration that the bag will not close precipitates a few brief seconds of flinging things back out of the bag - out go a pack of cards, a radio aerial and a sleeping bag. Pause. I take the aerial after all. You never know when these things come in handy. Rush to the station. Rush to the platform. Wait twenty minutes. Ho hum. Engineering works mean a delightful journey on a bus through outer London . The man who sits next to me looks like an advert for tweed, and has considerately put his children with another couple, where they misbehave quietly to the entertainment of all.

Bath at 4pm . By some horrific coincidence I have missed the rest of the gang by about half an hour. Adam stands at the bus stop and informs me that they are absolutely positively to restart at 6. No doubt in his mind. Definitely. We retire to the bar, where I drink and he gets nervous about the impending show. We chat about the possibility of making a film next year, and I agree to send him the original film script of Party Games. At ten to six we set off for the Arts Barn where the others are to arrive. At around about ten past I stand on a wall and hurl insults indiscriminately. This is because the barn is locked, and no one else is there. It starts to rain. At about quarter past Claire (Emily) arrives. She seems to be dressed for the part already, but informs me that her costume is inside. Eventually Mr Matt Nation , producer extraordinaire puts in an appearance, and informs us that everyone is to meet at half past. A number of dirty looks and muttered insults change hands and we go inside. The rest of the cast are present by seven.

 As is usual the hour before the performance disappears faster than the chocolate biscuits at a weight watchers convention. Somehow, I am informed that I am to run Front of House. In silence myself and Matt carry out the customary step of emptying all the small change from our wallets into pointless "tickets" and "programmes" boxes, despite the certainty that these would be pooled before the end of an hour. The cast wander around in mild panic. Each has taken the precaution of losing something vital and now attempts to recover it. In addition the usual tradition of leaving clothing in the auditorium has been fulfilled, and I attempt to rectify both. With salutary caution I wish them good luck, and tell them I have high expectations. All I know is that Matt felt the show was going well on Wednesday, and despite a dodgy run the previous night, the afternoon's dress rehearsal had gone very well. The egotist in me reserves a seat on the opposite side of the auditorium to the door, and I begin to let the audience in, disguising both my own feelings of doubt, and the fact that I am the author.

 Ten minutes. Five minutes. No minutes. The five minute wait between real and theatrical time. Then I take my seat. I am filled with fear and worry - what do I say to them if I don't like it? Do I lie and pretend I liked it? To criticise at this stage would demoralise them terribly. I decide to cross the bridge when I come to it.

We open with "HOTWIRE" - Adam's ten minute piece about a bomb in a bank. (Actually it's twelve minutes... I remember Matt's warning a month ago "you MUSTN'T have it longer than ten minutes whatever happens", and then after tonight's performance "it's the perfect length. Spot on") It's very funny - nothing tremendously ground breaking, but a perfect start to the show. I am relieved it's not too funny - it's not going to eclipse Party Games.

Party Games itself is well paced, well timed, and surprisingly well staged considering it's had no consistent direction with members of the cast sitting out at the front calling independent shots. Technical problems haunt the show, which I hope will vanish in the proper venue. Still, the audience like it, as they always do, and I find myself really enjoying the occasion, and all my fears falling by the wayside. At the end of the show Meurig relays the two words "well done" backstage to the cast for me. Afterwards I pass what few notes I have on to Matt. The cast all seem pleased with things, and I congratulate them individually on the quiet. The most sweeping change I suggest is to do away with the interval. Matt agrees.

Our sponsors (Verhoef Training) get in free and buy drinks at the bar afterwards. "Oh, you're the author. Weren't you on front of house?"

The get out proceeds much as usual in a BUST production. Some of the cast drift off to do their own thing, then return and wonder why everyone else is fed up. This is expected, but not countered. Bill goes himself.

We finally wrap up around eleven. For some reason Matt and I make it one in the morning before getting to bed. We sleep with the dark shadow of having to get up at about five o'clock .  

Music echoes in my head. God, it must be morning. Pause. Matt: "I was just wondering which bastard was playing their music so loud at this time. It's mine isn't it." I look at my watch and wonder what our chances are of making it up to the Arts Barn at 6am . For some reason, this hadn't occurred to me the previous night.

Matt packs, I shower. The world sits at the end of a long corridor down which I can't quite struggle. At 6am we leave the house, and after picking up Sacha, Guy and Meurig we, they, all their luggage AND all our luggage AND all the bits required for the play left at either of the houses make our way up to campus. The back seat looks as though it is full of bags as our colleagues crouch beneath a wall of luggage. We arrive at twenty past to an onslaught from Anna, Claire and Jo who have been waiting half an hour. I wonder how they will feel in two hours time when we're still packing the mini bus.

The spirit and joy of the occasion returns to the group as things are carted around campus. The set makes it's way back to the rostra store held by Adam on the roof of the minibus. We unload, then clown around in the drama workshop laughing at categorisations such as "small screws", "medium sized screws" and "various screws" in the newly tidied rooms. All the boxes seem to contain screws of much the same size, along with the odd nail and door hinge. The rostra store is now carefully ordered and has lost it's previous chaotic charm completely. How is anyone supposed to be creative in here? Furniture is now neatly arranged, and doors and windows are kept separate from other flats. The drama store even has a shelf set aside for the current production, and houses more lights than furniture. The wrecked sofa and broken chairs are gone, replaced by gels and neatly stacked black matting. The drama workshop even has useful tools in it, although we are warned on pain of death not to take them to Edinburgh. Instead we borrow a socket set and remove the back row of seats from the minibus.

Luggage, props set and costumes are carefully loaded onto the minibus while the less perfectionist among us stand and fume quietly. The stuff on the roof is this year to be held on with something resembling a giant hair net after last year's incident in which we nearly lost a fireplace. By about eight we are on the road, making a start in almost record time. With musical accompaniment and the usual "fraggle dancing" we hit the road with stops whenever the fancy takes us. The journey passes and in a few hours we are outside Carlisle . A few too many hours. We are early. We reward ourselves with a stop for Italian food and a stroll around outside the Scottish border, and another within it. Bill phones the housing agency and makes it possible for us to get in the flat when we arrive.

The flat is large and by Fringe standards well fitted - Bill and Rachel take a room, Matt and Sacha another. Then the girls take one dormitory and the rest of us fill another. After a little place swapping we each find beds that suit us, and elect to find food. Chips. First of many. Then pub. First of more. Then back to the flat BEFORE closing time (shock, horror). Tech rehearsal tomorrow.

As usual, Matt and Bill know what time to get up, but haven't yet worried much as to what will happen next. It'll work out. Trust me.

After one hour of our three hour slot, almost everyone has seen the lighting and sound facilities, and we have finally finished unpacking the minibus. People bodge around on set tackling the usual inconsistencies between published plans and actuality, and choose how to tackle certain problems. The cast begin to get bothered by the ticking clock and the apparent lack of anything happening. In fact, lots is happening, but no one has been told.

An hour and a half. The possibility of doing a full run disappears. An hour and a quarter. Tech crew are ready to go, and now the cast are hesitating. I try to jolly everyone along, but still there is a lack of coherence and they are trying to do a cue to cue tech rehearsal with the Stage Manager back stage, and no one sitting out front. Reluctant to stick my oar in, I help them out. Rachel and I make use of the montages to take photographs. "The music's too loud - half that volume" , "You'll have to hurry on... you're running out of time.", "we need to practice the entrances". The rehearsal changes from "cue to cue" to "cue to every third cue" then fifth, then tenth. Finally, they finish with ten minutes to clear the stage. Props are all hurled backstage and the panic focuses on the next fire: publicity. In half an hour the cast hurtle to High Street and the leafleting begins.

Rachel and I are despatched to find Safety Pins to hang the giant pear that is suspended at the back of the stage. We set off rather more sedately than the others to the flat, collect their things together. A few minutes later Matt, Bill and a few others arrive, having disposed of all their leaflets and driven back. I say nothing, and we walk into town, leaving them behind at a cross roads when Matt nearly spends twenty quid on a kilt clip as a cheap alternative to a safety pin. We don't manage our mission, get back to the venue with time to spare, despite my navigational incompetence.

The cast arrive later than they planned. The props and costumes are in a mess after the morning's rush. Even Sacha, the stage manager, is getting snappy. I quietly lay out the objects we collected from the flat, which are immediately lost in the panic. "Blood" goes up an anguished cry, and I am despatched to the back room to make more, although am unable to extract the recipe from anyone. It takes me the five minutes before the performance and a good fifteen into it to mix anything satisfactory. (Later they all claim it's the "best" blood they've had. I bet it's the longest in preparation too!) Rachel watches the show from the front. I listen from behind the curtain. There's an audience of eight (not bad!) and they laugh occasionally. It's a big venue, and they must feel awkward sitting on their own. The lines sound terrible - false, unfunny and with off timing. It's a real disappointment. Afterwards, the cast feel awful - morale is low and Bill and Matt are blamed. Guy and myself stand outside as our audience leave (at the end, I should emphasise!). All are bubbling with enthusiasm, and promise to tell their friends.

Despite efforts to stay together as a group everyone breaks up and goes their separate ways. Claire, Guy and myself vow to get a Chinese from a takeaway we have spotted, but end up getting  something twice as expensive and half as nice from an alternative, as the original was closed on Mondays.

Resolved to go to a show, a group of us hit "Bouncers" that night. Very very well staged. Then hit the Pleasance for a drink.

Now the whole thing seems dismal, however, this time it's not  the actor's fault, it's mine. The lines seem predictable, dull, the lulls in the acts fail to work at all, and the characters seem utterly daft. It's an effort to smile in the right places, but I am on display to an audience, and feel I must. They echo my thoughts and don't respond positively at all. Rachel's laugh is the only one I hear, and that, she says, is now pre-empting the jokes. We have to stop watching this damn play every day!

Went to a Sussex University play adapted by one of Adam's friends from a Muriel Spark novel. It seems inevitable that our swap won't work out! Afterwards, despite efforts to the contrary, the group fragments after the show. It seems that people are trying to compensate for the lack of team feeling in the production by drawing together afterwards. There is a real feeling that something needs to be done to resolve it. I tend to think life goes on - they're having a good enough time. A decision is taken : tomorrow is publicity day.  

At eight o'clock everyone is awoken by an alarm clock parade around the flat. Everyone is to be ready by nine. We make half past nine .

It seems the discipline has swung from so laid back we were lucky if the cast made it to the shows on time, to  boot camp.

The minibus began circuits while we tried to hire a stereo. No luck. Ten O'clock . Guy  and I dropped everyone off in High Street. It's virtually deserted. We get the shopping required for the planned "street party". Half past eleven . By one o'clock they're all in full swing with balloons, party hats, leaflets and free drinks. The audience this is targeted at is about four years old, but it's getting everyone's attention, including the cast's.

Lunchtime - rather than staggering people's lunch breaks, everyone packs in at the same time. (tomorrow this is concluded to be a bad idea: just as was pointed out last night!) I zip off to a travel agents to try and get a flight home. I succeed, but it's on the Saturday morning, not the Sunday, so I'll be going a day before everyone else. At least it will give me the time to get back to normal before having to go to work.

I rejoin the others - by chance - in the square in front of the gallery. It's now nearly half past two and time for people to think about the show. Bill has already quietly been told that Rachel and I shall not be attending the play today (hopefully she also told him that it's driving me up the wall listening to my own lines over and over again). In fact, we won't be going tomorrow either, but that's on a need to know basis. We walk from the Assembly Rooms where we part company with Guy to Princes Street where we part company with Adam, to the Fringe Office. Here we realise that if we hurry we can catch a show at the assembly rooms. We get there ten minutes later to discover that it started an hour before - I'd misread the program. Then we notice that if we hurry we can make the Footlights show. We get from the Assembly Rooms to the Pleasance in ten minutes. The moment we get in the lights go down. The show is on.

Footlights material all seems ten years out of date - the very concept of doing a revue. They themed it, although their subject, dictatorial regimes was oddly out of date to be satirical, but too directed to be surreal. It was rather as if a play had been stripped of all its linking material, and only left with comic set pieces. Needless to say, they had a good audience - it would have filled our venue ten times over. It seemed rather older than the audience I would have guessed they were aiming for, though.

Later we went to Mike Meier's show. Mainly because Bill had poured Lilt over him during our street party, and needed to appease his guilt. Still, the guy was very funny, and his show topped by three old ladies who had been sitting in the front row leaving (on time, actually, he was running late) one of them saying "pure shit" as they walked out. It couldn't have been staged better.  

Bumped into the others on my way to get something to eat. We decided to watch what must have been the worlds fastest treatment of "What the Butler Saw"... there was scarcely time for the actors to draw breath. I suspect them of having a play slightly too long for their slot, and being indecisive about what to cut.

Back to the sloppy get up routine. Time is just passing too quickly. Rachel and I decide to have a major blitz on the shows. We aim to make the Reduced Shakespeare Company's version of "the bible", but she's lost her credit card, and everyone else is faffing. Fifteen minutes to go. I think that if we set off within ten minutes then Guy can drive us right outside the Assembly rooms and we can still make it. In my mind I half the time and ask Matt whether he thinks everyone can get out of the flat in five minutes. He says they can, and walks into the living room saying "three minutes, everyone!".

A quick drive - leap out - two hundred yard dash. We make the time, but they've sold out of tickets. We plan (my God!) for the afternoon, and pick two shows: "the agent" and "the interview", and decide to take a leisurely stroll for lunch. Unfortunately we've get to ten minutes to go and I realise we've still got a mile to go. So, once again we rush off - this time I don't know the way and we take a shortcut going nowhere. Buggered. Instead we head for "mice", making it with three minutes to spare! Very good show, if a little chaotic. Lots of conflicts set up and not resolved, including an unnecessary coincidence. Then make the NSTC's production of "the interview".

Bill's parents are in town, and after a quick chat, I succeed in frightening them off. I rush off in search of my long promised baked potato, meeting Anna at the restaurant. She seems happy enough with the way things are going. Potato done it's another desperate rush to the flat to meet Adam. He's far more set on drinking champagne than seeing this impressionist, but we manage both with another headlong rush through crowded streets - this time to the gilded balloon. The guy is funniest when he does his impressions, but has unfortunately themed his act, and so has more linking material than gags. Shame.

All the roads are closed on our way back, and their is an Independence day-like rush of people from the castle, all looking up at the sky at the fireworks. We stop off in the park with an excellent view of the proceedings... me behind a tree and Adam watching the reflections on a bus-stop.

Eventually we make it back to the flat, just in time for everyone else to leave. They're all on their way to a pub. It turns out to be a gay bar, as I realise when I try to open a vinegar sachet over my chips and it turns out to be an extra strength condom. From here we set off to a club. it was on three floors, two of which  were shut, and the other virtually deserted. After they poisoned us by filling the room up with dry ice, Adam and I opted to leave, and returned to the flat for a late night alcohol and bull-shit session.  

My last sensible day in Edinburgh - and horribly hungover. We could make "the bible" but quite frankly I don't want to any more. No show could live up to the amount of trouble we'd taken to see the damn thing. Instead we settle for a gentle stroll across the park around the base of the castle, up the castle mound and down high street. This is as far as it sounds. Further. We eventually settle in a coffee shop. After ordering about three times we finally ask for what we want instead of a close alternative. Newton 's method of ordering in a coffee shop.

Bill wants to go into the second hand bookshop but his plans are curtailed by Rachel who steals one of the tea strainers, and we hot foot it down high street. Eventually we get back for the show. It's not quite so bad today. It's still not getting big laughs, even with an audience of twenty or so. I think their timing's a little out, and tell them so, but think afterwards that it was about the least helpful thing I could have said. Obviously they knew it was out, but didn't know how to rectify or, or they would have done, right?

Quick dash to view Chekhov's farces. Somehow, on the way Bill and Rachel fall out with one another. Don't know what happened. Neither does Bill. Anyway, the aura of tension between them (I have to sit between them in the theatre) somewhat spoils the occasion.  We drop into a bar afterwards, prior to Greg Proops, who four of us have tickets for. Neither speaks much. Bill cracks a few idle jokes which seem to defrost things a little. Then a slow crawl to our venue last year which has changed enormously. It holds about twice as many people in the round. Greg Proops is extremely funny and over runs his one hour slot by nearly forty five minutes. Sadly, this means that Bill has only ten minutes to reach the Royal Mile for the ghost walk which he promised Rachel. He gets Greg's autograph on a ticket to try to save his life and legs it off. Adam, Guy and I go for a quick drink in the Pleasance, then it's back to the flat to pack.  

Ever tried to get up silently in a room where the bed creaks, the floorboards squeak, and the zip on your suitcase has joined the conspiracy by refusing to do up, whilst perched on to of a rattling cupboard with a drawer which jams when you try to open it. I dreaded the ten pence running out in the shower. 5 am is definitely too early. My taxi exactly arrives on time, apologising for being so late (standard practice among cab drivers, I've noted) and gets me to the airport early. So far so good.

Check in. The woman behind the counter asks if I packed my bag myself. I cheerily reply that I packed it in a dark room and wouldn't be surprised if there was a standard lamp in there. This is not one of boxes available to check on the computer and I am frostily asked the question again. "Yes" I reply meekly.

A little background on the airport: luggage goes on a conveyor belt at check in, and is wheeled down a high tech ramp to a rubber flap. At Edinburgh airport, this is the only high tech part of luggage movement. From here it is handled exclusively by a chap called Alf, who's hand you see appearing from under the rubber flap occasionally, to hungrily seize the bags. From this stage it is a fifty foot drop onto a concrete floor away from being chucked on a van. Every third passenger manages the quick walk down the queue faster than Alf can chuck bags and is therefore asked if they mind their bag undergoing a "random" security check. Presumably to say "no" would be to invite being wheeled off to a quiet room with a burly security guard who's only pleasure in life is looking for illegal substances in the parts that even Heineken doesn't reach.

"Of course", I chirp gleefully before lugging my bag down another six miles of corridors. At least Alf and his fifty foot drop won't get a look in.

We were told to board. Seat numbers miff to plunkerty twink were to go through the front doors of the plane whilst all those above plunkerty twink were to go to the back. Everyone reached for their boarding passes and checked their seat numbers. Many murmurs of "what was that" echoed around the room. The announcement was not repeated.