Tales from Edinburgh: #5 Alex Horne

In 2005, at my third Fringe, I performed a show called When In Rome. Every day, at 10.40pm, I would try to teach my audience Latin in one hour. Because an hour isn’t all that long to learn a language, I held daily top-up sessions at the Slug and Lettuce at the top of Leith Walk, just after lunch. To my surprise, many people attended these 25 minute lessons, including a man called Jeremy Miles.

A year later, Mr Miles got in touch to let me know that following the Festival he had taken it upon himself to sit a GCSE in the subject of Latin. He’d taken the exams that summer and was now awaiting his result. I had never been more proud – until he got in touch again to say he’d been awarded an A*. This was better than five stars in any newspaper.

Then, in 2008, I auditioned successfully to be a contestant on Channel 4’s Countdown. When I walked into the studio in Leeds I saw a face I recognised in reception: the face of Mr Jeremy Miles. He was also to be a contestant on that day’s recording. In case you’re not sure, this was an incredible coincidence.

I was to play the first game of the day against the current champion, and Jeremy would play the winner – so there wasn’t just a teapot at stake as I asked Carol for my first set of letters. As you’ll know if you saw the show (it was aired on August 28^th 2008) I did win. So the teacher had to face the pupil. Three years after encouraging him to take up Latin, I was engaged in a wordy battle against Jeremy Miles. On television. As you’ll know if you saw the show (August 29^th 2008) I won again, and I’ve never been so proud.

This year I’m back, with a show called Odds. It’s about whether events occur by chance or if we control our own destiny. Walking back one night from rehearsal at the Pleasance to my charming flat on the Meadows, I had just decided that the story of Jeremy Miles would be an appropriate one to tell here when I looked up and saw the face of Mr Jeremy Miles once more. This time it was on a poster attached to a window of the Meadow Bar on Buccleuch Street, where Jeremy is now doing his own one-man show. It’s called Bass Notes, and I know I’ll be going along.