The Fringe’s Open Mic Night was my favourite event last year, and it was the very same this year. Last year and this one, this event was a charming little free one; open to all those who want to share and to those who don’t and just feel like watching on. I’m glad all over again that I’ve gotten the chance to attend it, and share my work with a tightly packed room full of people who want to know what it sounds like because they know just what it feels like to write and want to share, too. It’s an event that has me perfectly in my element, enveloped by people who understand so fully what I’m feeling, and that in itself is irreplaceable.
I was lucky, I think, to have found the event during my first Fringe Festival experience last year, and to see it return and to be able to return myself was such a great feeling that there isn’t really a place in me that I can place it. I enjoy the feeling of a homey cafe and a safe atmosphere where there’s no shame in flubbing one’s words or losing one’s place or anything even remotely like that. It really drove down my nerves and calmed me while I was up there, reading out things I’d written that I’d always assumed would only ever be read in one’s (maybe even just my own) head. I had my reservations at first, also, but they were quelled much faster than I expected, and I don’t doubt in the slightest that that’s down to how supportive the mood in the cafe felt, how everyone was rooting for each other.

It was good, definitely, to watch other people get up and prepare themselves and read their own work. It was nice to be a part of that safe and supportive atmosphere and hope that someone else felt I was doing for them what they had done for me. It was nice to see the differences, too; people with one notebook, three notebooks, their phones, or no scripts at all – just them and their heads and all the words inside them. It was nice to watch the mood shift with each person’s piece or pieces. Some were funny, serious, topical, and so on. Everyone was different, and I really liked that.

The hostess, Alice Downing, was just as great this year as she was the last. This event wouldn’t be the same without her, I really believe that. So I’m glad, all over again, that she was there and the perfect person to eject support and a sense of calm into this room full of slightly apprehensive writers.

Most importantly, I had fun. I hope that everyone else did, too.

So much of the Fringe is still happening in these last five days. I myself only have two more events that I can make it to. I’m having fun, it’s been good, and I know it’ll continue to be great. http://www.cardifffringetheatrefestival.co.uk/shows-tickets/

Sian Thomas