This week I am co-hosting the Scott Wilson show on Forth 1 (97.3 FM) from 6 to 7.30pm. I was slightly annoyed with myself for agreeing to do this. Obviously itÂ’s the last week of the Fringe and I am tired, but also had been hoping to catch a few shows and this restricts me even further. I have now started saying no to things, but this has been in the diary for ages. What was I thinking?
When I arrived Scott was browsing through my press release. “Did you write for TittyBangBang?” he asked.
“No,” I told him, “It’s saying that it’s impressive to win the worst comedy experience award in a year that saw the launch of that show.”
“Didn’t you like it? I thought it was pretty funny,” he confessed.
“I thought it was one of the worst things I have seen,” I grumpily told him.
We hadnÂ’t got off to a great start, but itÂ’s OK for co-hosts to disagree about stuff. Maybe itÂ’s preferable.
But the show kicked along quite easily. I think I didnÂ’t join in as much as Scott was hoping, but the guests were interesting and talkative and so I didnÂ’t really feel I needed to. Neil and Christine Hamilton were on. With my poker chat show last year I ended up interviewing a lot of people in a similar celebrity sphere as these two. James Hewitt and the coughing Millionaire man and his wife had been through the ringer a bit too and had become famous in the first place principally for doing something a bit suspect. And during the boat race show I had got to know another disgraced Tory, Jonathan Aitken.
The Hamiltons, of course, shot to fame as a result of a scandal and then were caught up in false accusations about something much, much worse (the Louis Theroux footage of the two of them coping with these bogus rape claims is one of the best TV moments I have ever seen). Luckily they were totally exonerated and I think the sympathy that they got for this episode really actually helped them enormously. But it was still strange and surreal to be sharing a studio with them. I had to bite my tongue a few times as I thought of contentious and rude remarks I could make, but they were actually quite a charming couple in a slightly insane kind of way. Christine was enjoying the free wine that was being laid on for her. They seem to be having the time of their lives up in the Fringe, feeling like students, though Christine is in trouble with the citizens of Newington where they are staying,
for comments made in a blog, which she now claims was only a joke. It was strange having to stand with my arm more or less around Neil Hamilton for a publicity photo. But stranger to think this slightly ridiculous man once had a say in running the country. In the end I had quite warmed to them and had actually enjoyed doing the show despite my reservations.
After another solid show I had a very nice time socialising out in the Underbelly beer garden. Without extra gigs I was able to get drunk and have some fun. With only a week to go I have to make the most of these last few days of opportunity. After all this is my last seven days at the Fringe in my thirties. I will be forty at the next festival and so will have to be mature. So look out for me if youÂ’re in town. I will be the one running around with my pants on my heads and another pair of pants round my ankles and a suit made out of some other pants and a mask of my own face made out of pants. It will be mainly a pant based week for me. To me pants equal immaturity. The mature have no interest or use for them.
