Jenny Ryan’s play Out of the Box has moved from the high seas of cruise ship entertainment to Edinburgh’s Gilded Balloon’s ramshackle Wine Bar. It’s also a pleasure.
The 41-year-old The Chase star is embracing life on stage, where she will share her wonderful, silky singing voice with punters this August, as well as a few TV stories.
After years of in-the-box quizzing, the Bolton-born TV personality was taken aback when she auditioned for Celebrity X Factor, and the audience fell in love with her singing talent.
It’s only since then Jenny has mustered the confidence to use it. But singing has always brought her joy. ‘It wasn’t really until I did X Factor that I realised it brought so many other people joy too,’ she said.
‘It’s very self-indulgent to do a show all about myself,’ she added, almost a little embarrassed. ‘But it’s no more so than any stand-up show or any cabaret show here. It’s creating something joyful and happy and I think everybody is left with a big grin on their face.’
Jenny, on the other hand, did not smile when she was tottering around Edinburgh earlier this month and discovered that her lone supersized billboard of her performance – which cost nearly £750 for the month – had been partially covered up by another act.
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Jenny voiced her dismay at such an attitude at a festival known for its communal environment in a tweet that quickly went viral.
Jenny shared her shock at the sight in an interview with Metro.co.uk.
‘Unless you’re a Fringe person, a lot of people don’t understand how the advertising works. You can’t just go and put your poster up anywhere,’ she explained while on a very gusty Edinburgh rooftop bar.
‘There’s a company called Out of Hand who will print and put up your poster in a designated place. But it is not cheap. I didn’t realise just how not-cheap it was.
‘The poster I had made that got vandalised cost me nearly £750 for the month.’
While other bands can afford to put several posters across town because they have a promotion, Jenny was self-funding her concert and only had enough money for a handful.
‘I could only afford 10 posters – because my artwork is so beautiful. Very vain of me,’ she joked.
So you can only imagine Jenny’s disappointment when she discovered another act’s poster covering up her show and venue name.
‘It wasn’t so much I was worried about it reducing my visibility or anything. I’m lucky enough to have name recognition profile so I can work that. It was more the principle of the thing,’ she explained.
‘This person could be putting that poster up over anybody. That could have been the last of their marketing budget.’
She added: ‘It’s really not the spirit of the Fringe. We’re all here trying to uplift each other. I know out of 3,000 odd shows everybody’s worked so hard. There’s loads of people who have put in time, money, sweat, tears, sick days at work. Late nights.’
‘It made me a bit sad, and the fact that [the festival] responded very quickly was good, to take them down. But it emerged that they’d done that to other people as well.’
Jenny messaged the perpetrators after posting her complaint to a Fringe actor Facebook group. She went down to see that the same act had posted’months ago’ – ironically asking for suggestions on where to hang posters.
‘Obviously, they didn’t read the message, so I tagged them in the post with the picture up and there happened to be people in the group who were representatives of PBH’s Free Fringe, who the performers were with.
‘PBH has very strict rules about your conduct if they give you one of their venues, because it’s the free fringe. I think they got a severe talking to.’
While Jenny did not want to name and shame anyone, she believes this is a useful lesson for performers.
‘I don’t think anyone will do it again.’
Jenny Ryan: Out of the Box is on every night at the Wine Bar, Gilded Balloon until August 28.
Source My Celebrity Life.