IamA Scottish stand up comedian. not famous but well known AMA!

How did you start and where do you get the courage from?

In Scotland the only answer is the Stand Comedy Club. There is lots a new act nights and new material venues but your creditability comes from one club and one club alone.

As for the second question, my courage is from nothing other than self delusion in the early stages. I cant's speak for anyone else but when i started i was a numbskull who had half a decent onstage ability and gibberish.

That through gigging got refined into some great bits that work in front of crowds. I am at the stage when the stuff that gets you noticed has to evolve into stuff that is genuinely good. I personally have not made that transgression yet. thought I did dial my comedy career back for a few years to make sure i had a lucrative plan B.

What is your plan B?

I worked at stand up for 5 years. 2 years overlapping with my previous job In the British Army working alongside (NRPS - non regular permanent staff) I was a STAB.

I flitted from studying law and biology whilst i was gigging to make my name and being a young idiot i spent more time on comedy thand my studies and got chucked out. I decided in 2012 after the demise and a large comedy club chain who made my career choice viable to go back to school and study Marine operations.

At this point i am a fully qualified Navigational Officer and looking for temporary contract jobs in that field. and using my stand up to keep myself afloat in the mean time whilst working on TV projects with some writing partners/geniuses that will inevitably be bought for tuppence and go no where.

I admire your ability to follow your dream of fame and success in entertainment while having a safety net in case it doen't work out. So many people go for the all or nothing approach and although a few get the "all" I feel for the "nothing" ones , of which there are a lot more.

Now, get out there and take over the comedy world! Best of luck.

Thank you. In all honesty i just want to get into a position when I always some new stuff that works every so often.

What's the most fucked up joke you know?

Personally i know a lot. I would be a piece of shit if I posted them here as they are technically the intellectual property of other comics that you most likely have never heard of but I highly respect.

Personally I have what you would call a rape joke but the subject is me witnessing and anti rape protest. So my tag at the end is...

"People hear the word rape and just react... they assume I'm saying something wrong. The fact of the matter is i am not making a rape joke.It is and anti rape joke, it is a positive message, en fact if you are not laughing at it you should be fucking ashamed of yourselves."

I'm not sure if that high and mighty ending is worthy of the joke itself but it gets a laugh.

"People here the work rape and just react... the assume I'm saying something wrong. but the fact of the matter is i am not making a rape joke. it is and anti rape joke, it is a positive message, enact if you are not laughing at it you should be affiancing shamed of yourselves."

I don't get it. Tried to make sense of it, can't get past the typos.

i will edit for clarity.

Edit: cheers for pointing that out. That post was a disaster.

I still don't get it :C maybe I'm just daft heh

Its not so much a joke as a highlight of juxtapidition. On paper it is not funny.

this is the most fucked one i know of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY3W9Z4bdS8

Not fucked up but entertaining

Where was your favourite audience in Scotland?

in Scotland it is a Tie between Burnt Island and Buckie. I wont mention the specific venues but they both shared the sense of dread and inevitable annihilation at the hands of the audience, the Buckie one had no microphone. That terror I believe translated into me and the other acts resigning ourselves to a brutal death and that sense of impending doom gave us the redesigned confidence to having some of the most fun gigs of my career. I would say my brothers in arms would probably agree.

You mention it's Buckie but won't mention specific venues. . .

Mainly because i cant remember the Buckie one and the Burntisland one is still going strong and i don't want to ruin it.

What made you decide you wanted to be a comedian?

It was an odd one. I was a comedy anorak who was a frequent flyierin my local comedy club The Stand in Glasgow. I became such a regular face comics started to recognise me and the sound tech and I became very good friends.

My first gig was the result of being at a party in a friends house and receiving a "Drop out email from the club saying they needed and extra body for the following nights "Red Raw" which was the open spot night. I replied in an attempt to impress a girl I liked who came to the gig the next night. I did pretty good with the gig but awful with the girl.

Such is Life.

Thanks for answering. Another question, Do you remember the first joke you said on stage? And what was the reaction?

I still have the notebook somwhere. I started my first gig just going through it reading out bullet points of what at the time I thought were funny ideas the first one got absolutley nothing.

At that point i resigned myself uto the fact that this was going to be painful.

Then i just started babbaling on. I think my resignation of doing. Gave me extra confidence because it went extremly well after that. So much so i ran over by 5 minutes and the manager said if i ever ran over again he would gang rape me. Himself.

I will hunt out the notbook and type up the bullet point. Laterish.

Is there a joke you always go back to?

At this stage in my Career i am attempting to ditch my old set and build up a new one... but when anything goes wrong in a club basically anything old is fair game.

And to be honest more often thatn not utilised due to a lack of self confidence.

What's the best heckle you've ever gotten? Is most heckling in your experience just audience members having some fun or do you feel its a bit more sinister like they are genuinely trying to hurt or upset you?

I've watched a lot of stand up but I've always wondered what a comedian thinks of it.

Very rarly is a heckler malicious. Often it is just an over eager audience member that wants abit of attention.

My act lends its self well to these events as i am approachable and not antagonistic. Tho i have been in situations where allowing the audience member into the performance results in the sudden birth of an ego maniac who doesn't realise all the previous laughs that were garnered where facilitated bys me. Occasionally i have tos castrate them and leave them feeling shitty in order to affectively move on.

I've seem other comics (usually of a certain style) flounder and die under the completely non malicious actions of audience members.

On the few occasions I've seen a malicious one it is usually because the person/people/self appointed leader of a group decides that they are offended my something that has been said. For me this provokes irrational anger in me and i hold nothing back when addressing them Eventually they get chucked out due to being babies who cannot handle it when it hits close to home and are often hypocrites who laughed heartily at other peoples expense until their particular penchant arose.

Best heckle i ever received was some older woman shouting. I can see you bulge... how big is it?

What are the funny things about Scotland, you know, disregarding the accents?

Lots of things. Most of them bleak,

The fact we are the first nation in history to vote against our own freedom (sorry Quebec but in my limited knowledge you where never autonomous.)

The almost retarded animosity between Catholics and Protestants, especially within the west of Scotland where I live. I personally find it embarrassing but people out there are still willing to hurt each other over it. I find this pathetic.

The insane differentiation in accents throughout Scotland that I only learned about after joining the Armed Forced (Reserves) initially then after i left gigging throughout the country and understanding that what i thought was a Scottish accent as a true born Scott was only about 10% of the sounds that my county could make using the word "Cunt"

I'm going to visit Edinburgh for the fringe this year, are you performing?

Most likly somwhere. Im not doing a solo show as i view the fringe as a trade show and i dont have the money to invest in performing. But i will most likly be their in a mercinery capacity.

I would suggest you check out the stand shows as outside of "free fringe and free festival" gigs they are the fairest to the performers.

How is Scottish stand up different from stand up in other countries? Is there crossover between stand up and sketch comedy such as in limmy's show?

The Limmy show is pretty out their I tjink its great but ot gets alot of slack.

I think in Scotland we are much more conversational anf often more racontuers. But that is by no meens a hard and fast rule.

Could you please post a proof picture of you holding up a piece off paper with your username and todays date written on it?

give me a couple of minutes. and i will have it up,

I wish i had the ability to make myself look cool using filters.

How much of your humour is based around your head?

Other than mentioning im bald a occasionally very little is based around my head.

You look like Michael from Vsauce.

I have no idea who that guy is, but upon goggling it i kinda agree except that guy clearly eats less McDonald's than me.

He makes cool science videos

I shall endevour to investigate.

Are you a fan of Mitch Hedberg? If not who do you look up to? P.s he had the best delivery ever.

I am aware of Mitch Hedberg, personally though i have never watched a lot of his stuff. For me he is too jokey. It is not a slight but a difference of perspective. In the UK most comedy club shows are structured very differently. A headlines usually does no more than 25 t0 30 minutes and there is much more focus on the "Host" which we call a compere.

I've had the pleasure of working with some high calibre American comics during the Glasgow Comedy Festival and some of them loved our way of doing things and some of the fucking despised it.

It's the difference of structure in a set that needs to be achieved when your doing an hour vs 25 minutes. and a lot of clubs in the US tend to book a headliner who draws a crowd. Guys who are used to that have to change it up rapidly to deal with 300 people who have never heard of them and are not willing to listen to the contextual bricklaying that occors over a longer set.

There is some serious fat trimming when structuring a 25 minute set compared to an hour and a lot of stuff that is great gets chopped due to the less laughy ridden set-up that is required for the meat of the bit.

Gotcha. Its strange how that work. Even from clubs from the east coast to the west coast and to here in Austin. He's all jokey. Who do who like to listen tell jokes?

First of all, tell Austin i love them, I hung out there for a few days in 2013 and once of our long-term bar staff at The Stand Glasgow if from Austin. once of my favourite places in the world and I've been most places.

Stewart Francis, for pure jokemithery.

for hilarious concept coupled with beautiful descriptive language it has got to be Dylan Moran.

My personal favourite is one of my own countrymen who has a similar level of Jokesmithery but coupled with topical relevance and pure brutality, but when analysed stands up as a valid critique. And that is Mr Frankie Boyle.

Not the best video but a god intro.

Ultimately my favourites are my friends and it would'nt be cool if i listed them.

What kind of humor is going to be popular with the 20-30 years old generation coming up?

Being a British based stand up the demise of the harsh humour of Franile Boyle is to me the most missed, a lot of people thing his stand up is shock value only but if you break it down is astute and addresses the correct targets.

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Yeah i used to do Snafu alot and the blue lamp a couple of times but not for a few years.

What's your favorite pokemon?

Bulbasaur.

Say something funny?

I wish i could on command. but it's harder than you'd thing, especially if you are expecting my own work.

Most of us come from the land where Carlos Mencia is famous. We don't expect original work, as long as it's funny.

From my experience that is how it works but only once you get to the stage where your face is more important than what you say (And many stand ups resent this in the UK). There are plenty awesome stand up who due to their intense workloads need guys to write for them... the guys i know who do it do not take the word for word joke written for them and use it but essentially buy the premise and restructure it so that it is presented using their own voice.

Does it annoy you when people mimic your accent? When you travel, does your accent help you with the ladies?

It doesnt bother me atall. Most people dont. But my experirnce of the states is that everyone tries to identify with some 200 year old ancestor and give it ago (Texas especially, my favoutie place.)

My avcent helps me encredibly in the states. And i love being the exotic guy despite having no abs... tho as a scotman i am imediatly trumdped by any irish human... I go from being exotic to suddenly being simply just the aggressive alcoholic*.

*@marknelsoncomic

Can't you just put on an irish accent? :P

PS: Got a clip of your shows? Would love to watch.

There are some clips utt there but they are old a from when i started and i deeded them to get gigs. I tried to get everything taken down but it turns out some of them i do not own the rights to despite never having signed any away. Ultimatly i dont know how to respond.

Also i am a very different performer than i was in the early days.

Were you at The Stand (Newcastle) on Monday? If so, then you were hilarious! The Deep fried Saint is one that'll stay with me for quite a while.

Also, what's your favourite/go-to comeback for a heckle?

Twas me indeed. And thank you very much. I wasnt super happy at that performance but thats mainly because the last time i was their i had a much better show.

Haha, at least you didn't spit cake over the front row, so you've got that going for you. All the same though, I was with some mates and we all thought you were brilliant! So you're very welcome.

I see from some of your other answers that you're going with new material, and I don't know if you've seen much of reddit, but if you're wanting to try some of your new stuff out, try /r/standupshots seems to get quite a bit of attention with the formula they've got (photo of you in action + caption of joke).

Hope to get the chance to see you again in the future! Keep up the good fight.

Thanks.

I'm an American living in London going to Edinburgh in the next two weeks to study comedy.

Where should I go?

I'd like some real personal places so I could get a word in with the comedians if possible. If you're in the area I'd love to get absolutely pissed with you.

Also, as an aside, I'm a stand up comedian with the god given name of Heckler.

Edit: would you be available for s short interview (2-4 questions)?

The best place for comedy is The Stand in Edinburgh, but i am biased. There are a few open spot nights in the town including The Beehive which would be your best bet for connecting with comics.

I am Glasgow based and not through in Edinburgh much but if you find your way to the Glo i'd gladly have a drink as long as you promise not to murder me.

What is your feeling about the depiction of Scots in Robin Williams famous golf bit?

It is exelent. I enjoy stereotypes. They are silly things and should be laughed at more than fought against.

I live in Glasgow, where's the best place for me to go and experience some stand up? Apart from The Stand I don't really know where to start!

New act nights at Yesbar on Durys lane and Comedy Crèche in The Dram on Woodlands Rd.

Saturday night at the state bar on Hollands Street and also goggle dead sheep comedy for bigger gigs in the outlying area!

Also pick yourself up a program for the Glasgow International Comedy Festival which is the biggest comedy festival in Europe and starts on the 13th March.

Thanks! I can't say I'm a big fan of Vesbar's rebrand but I'll definitely consider it :D and cheers for the heads up about the comedy festival, I had no idea that was happening soon nor that it was so big

Sadly few people do. The programs are available all over the place in pubs clubs and theatres. some cracking shows in Blackfriars on the go. I recommend "Darren Connell - Fat Chops" he's already sold out 2 shows and is selling his third now.

Scott Gibson at Websters Theatre.

Mark Nelson at The Stand.

Gary Little at Cottiers.

Did you really plan to be a comedian or just ended up being one?

That's a hard one to answer. Definitely more to the latter I think, i fell into something i was vaguely good at and enjoyed. It was about 80% an accident I think.

What's the funniest thing you've ever had the pleasure of seeing?

Im a huge 30 Rock fan and watch it through often.

Movie wise recently it has to be the line in The Grand Budapest Hotel

"Gunther was slain in the catacombs."

I dont know why but i lost my shit when o heard it. Twas ridiculous.

Stand up wise I think i have too many to mention.