July 2026

First ever Fringe shows, Edinburgh preparation, and musings about parliamentary politics

In July I performed my first ever Fringe shows and went to many more as an audience member. See below for how they went.

I am also at a crossroads professionally, with work in education having dried up, I have taken a massive step toward a whole new direction.

Output

My fifth album as The Kev has had this rave review in RGM, which wrote ‘sounds more like short stories than songs … in a good way,’ ‘full of witty lyricism’, and ‘genius’.

Illustrate Magazine wrote that it is ‘less like stand-up comedy and more like life’s uncomfortable truths spoken aloud with a knowing smile,’ adding that the ethos ‘Wishes in the Whispering Leaves ‘ties everything together with surprising poignancy.’

From Illustrate Magazine

I released an album trailer, with highlights of each song, here:

On the Kevin McGeary Guitar channel, I uploaded a classical guitar rendition of Beethoven’s ‘Sonata Pathetique’:

Activities

Since my work in education is unsustainable, I have started the Careership Academy. There are no obvious ways to harness a highly specialised skill-set, so I need new ideas and tools to negotiate the new A.I hellscape.

I have also been reading Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. YouTube channels The Free Press, Empyreon Academy, and Lex Clips all have videos arguing that it is the greatest book ever written. I am enjoying it but will take a break now that I am 700 of 1000 pages in. I don’t fancy lugging the thing up to Edinburgh.

On Hannah’s Bookshelf on Radio North Manchester, I documented some of my other recent reading, including a classic by Eileen Chang and two recent Booker Prize winners. And I wrote two Substack essays about music that I am proud of.

At the end of the month I gave one of my most enjoyable ever podcast interviews. It was with local rock band Blob Halford:

Honest Assessment of My First Ever Fringe Shows

On Thursday July 9^th and Saturday 11^th, I performed the Greater Manchester Fringe, my first ever Fringe performances. To prepare, I rehearsed the same flexible set for weeks leading up to it, practising much more material than I would need, knowing that plans change in the heat of battle.

I booked the venue in January. I had posters printed, made hundreds of fliers, sent press releases to countless media, and made three radio appearances. I also messaged dozens of friends and acquaintances inviting them to come. On top of that, I attended every Fringe mingling event to help spread awareness and meet other performers.

This is my honest assessment of how it went:

Negatives

- If everyone who said they would be there had turned up, it would have been standing-room only. As it turns out, on both nights, the audience didn’t even reach double figures. I was crestfallen.

- For that reason, there was a very low ceiling as to how enjoyable the nights could have been.

- A couple of glitches in my own performance with getting verses mixed up, but I was able to laugh those off.

- If I couldn’t get people to come to my gig in Manchester, where I know everyone and have a seven-year track record of bringing the house down, then how on earth am I going to fill the venue in Edinburgh, where I don’t know anyone and am competing with thousands of performers with much sleeker operations?

Positives

- When it comes to the humour landing when it was supposed to land, the set went well.

- It was my most ambitious set yet, the material that has a track record to get people absolutely horizontal with laughter – ie ‘The FVSDA’ and ‘Romance Tonight’ – was in there. And it was well framed and well placed within the set.

- I left out some of my strongest material, including ‘Millicent’ and ‘Cheap Hotel’. In Edinburgh I will presumably whip out those big guns at some point, but it is heartening to know I have stockpiles of material that can be held in reserve.

- If a time traveller from the future came and said that this stuff would never make any money or make me famous, I wouldn’t stop, or change my approach. So in a sense nothing has worsened.

Wider World

In the thirty years leading up to the Brexit referendum, there had been six prime ministers of the UK. In the ten years since then, there have been seven. The latest to fall on their sword before completing a parliament is Sir Keir Starmer, who won a historic landslide in July 2024, and is one of the few to have had a genuinely impressive career before becoming a politician.

He was often criticised for his lack of charisma, but I think one of the best things about parliamentary politics, as opposed to presidential politics, is that the character and personality of the candidates is less important. Starmer’s replacement, Andy Burnham, had been the Mayor of Greater Manchester and re-entered parliament in a by-election.

The image of him being announced as having one the by-election is evidence of why parliamentary systems are a good buffer against demagoguery.

If you were to meet Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, the correct term of address would be ‘Mr President’. Former prime ministers tend to slink away without spectacle. Harold Wilson was unable to go on speaking tours because he had dementia when he was barely old enough to collect a pension.

History has shown us repeatedly that cults of personality are dangerous, no matter who they are for. I have always recoiled from the grandiosity of American presidential politics.

Here is an evocative quote from ‘Black Lamb and Grey Falcon’ by Rebecca West, a tome about the history of Yugoslavia: ‘Now, if a man takes an office, he will modify it according to what he is as a man, according to his temperament and official standards. But then it was taken for granted that a man would modify his temperament and ethical standards according to his office, providing it were of any real importance.’

For trivial reasons, such as more charisma, and also for more substantial reasons, like superior political experience and wherewithal, Burnham should be a step up from Starmer. But I am glad there is no cult of personality. Political scientist Karl Loewenstein observed that American political culture doesn’t work outside America, with its historic prosperity, and relative freedom from outside aggression. And these days they are not working that well in America.

Ps: The saddest of news

Two days ago I woke up to the news that Dave Seymour, founder of Shenzhen bar and restaurant La Casa, had died in a car crash in Canada. La Casa is where I first performed musical comedy in early 2012 and playing there was one of the best experiences of my life.

In an interview with a literary journal, novelist Jordan Dotson once wrote of the La Casa glory days:

He leaves behind a wife and very young adult daughter.

So not a good month.