Last year London-based comedian James Trickey was enjoying a run of his debut solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
He was getting attention in the national press, living with friends, and being an accountant by day, comedian by night. He was on the ultimate performer’s high going into the final night of his run. Then a fire alarm went off, and his show was evacuated, but the audience was enjoying his set so much they asked him to continue it outside on the streets. So of course, he did.
What an experience, what a buzz, what a time to be performing.
But then, James got punched in the face.
‘The audience were all like, “We were loving it. Keep doing the show on the street. Keep going!” James remembers. ‘You hear the stories about people doing this in the past, and it’s always like, oh, the spirit of the Fringe is beautiful, lovely, what show business, you know?’
As James and the audience settled on the street towards Cowgate to continue the show at around 10pm, a member of the public told them to shut up. It was a Sunday, so that’s completely fair enough, James admits.
‘Can you all shut up? People are trying to sleep,’ was the stranger’s opening. James understood this was perhaps not someone he wanted to mess with, apologised, and turned to tell the audience the show was over.
‘What are you, some kind of student?’ the man shouted, as James turned his back to address the audience. ‘I was very confused,’ James remembers. He tried to apologise to the angry stranger, but nothing resonated, and he continued to shout.
James’ producer came over and tried to get between the man and him, but he was already on a warpath and wasn’t going to back down.
‘Then he just punched me in the face, it came out of nowhere,’ James says. The ‘Guardian reader middle class’ audience gasped, James recounts with a small glint of amusement in an otherwise sombre retelling.
The man ran off and he was eventually arrested. Edinburgh Court summoned James to be a witness, but the man is not turning up to his court dates so there is now a warrant out for him.
‘I guarantee he won’t remember me at all,’ says James, who is performing at the Edinburgh Fringe again this August. ‘But there’s a little bit of me, which is like, was it a good idea to put my face on a lot of posters all around the city to be like, here’s where I’m going to be each night?’
It’s no wonder the moment has stayed with James. After just a three-minute interaction, the man split James’ lip into such a wide gash he had to go to A&E to get stitches.
‘I think the main thing was the immediate high to low,’ James says. ‘I was like, “I’m having such a good time”, to a complete change in status and feeling.’
James’ first reaction was not anger: it was shame. Since then, he’s spent a lot of time working through these complicated feelings.