Comedy
Saturday night: His name’s Guy. Mid to late twenties. Mousy hair slowly receding from his forehead. He was up in Edinburgh from Manchester with a couple of mates while his girlfriend was painting the town red with her mates in Leeds. He said he was a civil servant (my guess being he worked in the Department for Work and Pensions). Oh, and he didn’t shave his balls.
Before you get excited and think I’m back to tales of ill-judged sexually frustrating activities (which featured occasionally in this blog before I knew better), I should point out that at no point during my first Festival weekend was I doing anything as naughty as attempting to molest straight men from northwest England. Perish the thought; I get plenty of rejections from the homosexualists without extending myself to the other 90% of the male population… Er, where was I?
Oh yes; Guy — who was rather hot-looking (apt name, apt description)… Actually he shared most of the above information with more than 100 other people he didn’t know, and presumiably hoped would never see again. Why? Well, the long answer has to do with Alpha Male tendencies, the evolution of human psychology and, of course, a progression of linked hands right back to the creation of the universe. Short answer; being among the last people into one particular sweaty, airless and dripping “under the Arches” performance space, he and his mates had no alternative but to sit in the front row of a comedy gig. Right in front of the microphone soon being used by stand-up comedian Scott Capuro. At one point, even Capuro asked Guy, “Why are you telling me this? I don’t know you.” But, when someone on a stage asks you a question, even I found it impossible not to automatically answer!
Saturday — sheesh, it’s Tuesday, and I’m only now writing it up? — was Comedy Day as far as “my” Edinburgh Festival was concerned. And, yes, I ended up spending the day almost entirely within venues and at shows that were part of the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. Yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to do that. So, I’m a hypocritical c***, but (as I say far too often) life’s what happens while you’re busy making plans. Just ask the Georgian State Dancers.
Anyway. Part of Saturday was, technically, work — I saw the latest show by comedian Laurence Clark, whose unique selling point (so to speak) is that he has cerebral palsy. Not that he only talks about disabilty; he has the knack, like all good comedians, of taking his own personal experiences and views and finding the universal within them that makes other people laugh. Yes, his show does raise some interesting points about how society in general views disabled people — a guy in a wheelchair can seemingly collect money for “Pay My Mortgage” or “Kill the Puppies” and be more successful because the general public in some way feels more sympathetic to someone who — as one old man eventually said, after clearly searching his aching brain cells for what he thought was the least offensive terminology in our wonderfull new cause-no-offence world, “some kind of cripple”.
Anyway, back to Guy. Laurence is a handsome enough chap, but he’s married, and while his show had the potentially controversial title “Spastic Fantastic!” — the hook was an attempt to reclaim the word “spastic” in the same way that “queer” and “nigger” have been turned from terms of abuse into terms of pride — the reality was that the show was fairly civilised and not at all beyond the pale. Unless, possibly, you were Heather Mills — who proved to be the one cause Londoners would not even give money to. But, let’s face it, there are times when you want your comedy to be just so “out there” that you hope at least some of the audience will get up and leave.
I was about to write that Scott Capuro was sufficiently “outrageous” to provoke six people to leave before the end of his act, but in truth the word has been somewhat tarnished by the performers it’s been attached to over the years, from Kenneth Williams to Alan Carr. Capuro is undoubtedly provocative — “I was accused of being a Holocaust denier. I said: ‘What Holocaust?’” — but it was equal opportunities — whether you were straight, queer, white, “coloured” or so black it made him look slim shagging you — and, just when you thought he was going to fall over the precipice, he’d pull back to reassemble his shock troops ready for the next subject. He might have pulled his trousers down and simulated wanking off, but he wasn’t as unsubtle as to show his cock.
The final comedy of the evening was provided by the people — many of whom were in those cheap plastic bin bag things — who, having stuck through a somewhat soggy Edinburgh Military Tattoo, for some reason thought they’d be able to get on a night bus after the first couple of stops on Princes Street. Oh, how I laughed inside at their innocence. But not as much as the huge queues for taxis — don’t these people ever learn? On a Saturday night (OK, early Sunday morning) when it’s been pissing down for hours and the streets are awash with raindrops bouncing off the tarmac, the last place you’ll get a taxi is at a taxi rank. Given the stress and tension that can form in such queues, however, you might get a fist in the face — or worse!
