Yesterday, comedy critic Kate Copstick and I recorded our weekly Grouchy Club podcast. Topics ranged from Copstick getting drunk and buying vibrators from Poundland to what comedy writer Barry Cryer says when he goes into a pub and why Sean Penn’s hair in Carlito’s Way lost Copstick a job on BBC TV’s Good Morning with Anne and Nick.

But our chat also roamed into talking about Edinburgh Fringe comedy show previews and putting press quotes and stars on Fringe posters. This is a short extract.

JOHN

You absolutely have to do previews for Edinburgh, don’t you, because it’s so important and it’s an hour long?

COPSTICK

Do you, John? Do you?

JOHN

Well, when people do the circuit, it’s 20 minutes or half an hour at most, whereas an Edinburgh hour is about 55 minutes – and to do twice as long is actually more than twice as hard, isn’t it? – To actually get a structure to it.

COPSTICK

I believe that people frequently over-preview. You see people in January saying: It’s an Edinburgh preview!

JOHN

Can you over-preview?

COPSTICK

I think you can over-preview.

JOHN

You become too slick?

COPSTICK

You go to the Fringe, I like to think, to get close to comedy, to see a bit red in tooth and claw and frequently I like to see things, if you’ll pardon the expression, a little loose.

JOHN

What happens if you do over-rehearse it or over-preview? Does it just become…

COPSTICK

I think it becomes stale. I think you (the performer) become stale. As a stand-up, if you’re not interested in and excited by and entertained by and hopefully amused by your own show, then why the hell should anyone else be?

The full Grouchy Club Podcast is in audio at PODOMATIC and iTUNES

and in video at YOUTUBE.