Journalism

Guardian Diary Piece

My Edinburgh for the Guardian

I first came up to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1987 as a spotty student, performing my routine about a corrupt ventriloquist to up to six people a day. It was the most amazing summer of my young life: I spent afternoons crying with laughter and nights crying myself to sleep. I became quickly addicted to the highs and lows of what I still believe is the greatest Arts Festival in the world. Nineteen years on and I am well into the run of my 22nd Fringe show and more often or not when I see my name in print it has the word “veteran” shackled to it. I have spoken to several performers who were not even born when I first appeared here. It’s the kind of thing that could make a lesser man feel old. Luckily I have no self-awareness and have somehow convinced myself that I am still a teenager. Just one with some kind of premature ageing disorder that makes his bones ache every time he climbs a hill. Luckily all the young women I talk to, treat me with the same disdain and disgust that they did when I was nineteen (though for different reasons) so it’s easy to keep fooling myself.
This Festival is turning out to be a strong contender for the best of the fifteen that I have appeared at. I have found a new level of confidence and playfulness with my stand-up and there is an electric atmosphere in the dank, damp room I am performing in. I will know that the show is a true success when this combination of water and metaphorical energy causes the electrocution of someone in the audience. Hysterical laughter of 185 people is not enough for me, my jokes must kill and maim. Only in destroying find I ease. I fear that I am doing so well that the government might harness my comedy as an alternate to the nuclear industries and I will spend the rest of my life cracking jokes whilst attached to some gigantic dynamo. Maybe comedy will save the world after all.