Edinburgh Festival

I was first taken to the Edinburgh Festival by my parents when I was about 11 (a long, long time ago, before the internet, kids - actually, it was before cars with heaters). In those days, the main Festival comprised a handful of theatre and arts events and the Fringe was about as lush as a slaphead's comb-over.

And that was it until 1988 when I took my wife-to-be up there in an attempt to convince her of my aesthetic sensibilities. By then, the Fringe was fairly well established, albeit a far cry from the behemoth of today. The Assembly Rooms - now defunct - was the hub, while the Pleasance and the pre-blaze Gilded Balloon were in their infancy. We saw some cracking shows including Victor and Barry, a brilliant camp-fest with the young Alan Cumming who was clearly a star in the making.

Thereafter, we went almost every year, often with my parents in tow, and saw some stunning shows - plus, of course, plenty of crap. That's the Festival. New venues opened up every year, while existing ones expanded. Rawness was replaced by slickness and professionalism, and it became THE place to make your name. Pre mega-fame, we saw people like Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Alistair McGowan, Jack Dee, Lee Evans, Omid Djalili and Jenny Eclair. And the Perrier Award - since superseded by the Fosters - was the key to the comedy door.

Edinburgh inspired me to give stand-up a try, although I had no designs on a career in comedy. I'm shy and was never a performer, but I was that irritating attention-seeker who could make his friends laugh and thought I could simply adapt my schtick for a roomful of strangers. I got that dramatically wrong, as it turned out, but I had some impressions up my sleeve which seemed to work and, suddenly, and without particularly wanting it, I was launched into a 'career' which eventually included live work all over the UK and abroad, TV shows and countless radio shows.

Edinburgh, though, was the promised land and, in 1996, I was offered a last minute slot at the Gilded Balloon which I couldn't turn down. I should have. My half-baked show got me nowhere. The following year, I took more time over it, used my experience, brought to bear everything I'd learned, and performed an equally useless show in the same venue. I waited 5 more years before revealing my obsession with baldness with a show called Losing It. It was funny in parts, but wasn't well received and, worse, I shaved off all my hair for the 4 week run. I'm still not bald 10 years later, by the way, but remain traumatised. By 2005, I'd teamed up with Philippa Fordham and we took our show, He Barks, She Bites, to the Pleasance. We were nominated for the Dubble (sic) Act Award and spotted by the BBC, eventually getting our own series on Radio 4. Finally, Edinburgh had paid off.

This year, I decided to try Edinburgh for probably the last time. I had an idea for a show, you see - about how I stumbled into impressionism - and started exploring the possibilities. But it was a late decision, too late. In the old days, comedians applied in June, wrote their shows in July and pitched up in Edinburgh in August. Nowadays, you need to be on the case as soon as the previous Festival has finished, writing, previewing, organising a venue, having photos taken, creating posters, appointing a PR agent...and that's the tip of the iceberg. After I was offered a slot at a leading venue a couple of weeks ago, I started fumbling around trying to first locate then fit all the pieces of the jigsaw together. The show - nowhere near written - was the least of my concerns. And, as one delves into the Edinburgh minefield, it becomes clear that it's going to cost a fortune. Guarantees to the venue, travel, accommodation, printing, PR - not much change out of £10,000. With a following wind, a couple of good reviews and 50% seat occupancy, you might eventually only lose £7,000. The point, of course, is that this is an investment. If you get spotted by the BBC or a promoter who wants to take your show on tour or an awards panel, you could be on your way, but for the 2000+ shows that fly under the radar, it's a case of trudging home with all your savings blown.

The money wasn't the only reason I decided not to go, though it was certainly a compelling one. The show just wasn't going to be ready. And I'm old. I know that shouldn't be a factor, but comedy is a young man's game and mature performers are often given short shrift by reviewers however funny they might be. We're just not hip. And, worse, I'm an impressionist, the most heinous, unworthy, unoriginal genus of performer in the comedy-sphere, at least in the eyes of the comedy purists. Or wankers, as I prefer to call them. I'd only get a bashing if I didn't pitch the show just right, and you can't do that if it's April and you haven't even written it.

So...Camden Fringe, here I come! Edinburgh? Maybe next year.

Being Bald

Let's be clear. By any objective analysis, I'm not bald. Indeed, I'm told I have a thick - if greying - thatch that any sane man of my vintage would be proud to have flapping about atop his head.

Well say what you like, Mr Objective-Analysis. Like an anorexic is fat, I'm bald.

I need to explain. My Dad went bald before we even met. He was 30 when we first shook hands (I'm told I held onto his finger in a manly, British fashion on the day I was born) but it wasn't until I was about 10 that it first struck me that, in addition to passing his unusually thick-thigh and myopic-eye genes to his only son, he might also have let slip that poisonous baldness gene into my DNA. So, even as I experimented with David Bowie sticky-uppy hairstyles in my early teens and, later, the Duran Duran fop-top-mullet combo, I was convinced my days amongst the truly hirsute were numbered. As if to prove my terrifying theory, I started receding at 18 and, notwithstanding that I now had a hairline which matched that of my maternal grandfather and uncles (hairy bastards, all, well into their seventies) I thought it prudent to warn everyone in my immediate social orbit (and way, way beyond it) that I would soon be tress-less.  

It was only when I made Facebook contact with several friends I hadn't spoken to since the late 70s that it became clear just how far and wide I'd broadcast my obsession, and just how early I'd started. Every one of them queried my photo. Is that a wig? Thought you said you'd be bald at 25. Are you still being a fucking bore about your fucking hair?


Well I am still a fucking bore about my hair even though it hardly matters any more. I mean, I might still offer the occasional leer in the direction of a pretty young thing in Starbucks, but she sure as fuck ain't looking at me. No-one looks at old people. Ask my daughters. But I'm married, have been for a long time, and when my wife says she'd leave me if I went bald, I simply don't believe her. That's not grounds, is it? How shallow would that be? I wouldn't leave her if she stopped having fabulously wealthy parents.

No, I'm all set; don't need to impress the ladies any more. Like I ever did. But when you're 19 and you think you're going bald, the only thing on your mind is the ridicule, the loss of attractiveness, the premature ageing, the long lonely descent into forever-bachelorhood. Because women don't go for bald men, do they? And if they do, a 19 year old can't see it. A 53 year old knows no-one gives a shit.

And, if you need any more convincing, consider this. In 2002 I decided to do a show at the Edinburgh Festival which confronted baldness (ahem) head on. It was called Losing It and was a self-indulgent pile of shit with a few funny bits. I decided I couldn't convince the audience of my obsession (and its obvious hilarity!) unless I was bald myself. So, facing my worst fears, I shaved it all off. It was horrific, believe me, like losing a limb, but it had to be done. And this is how everyone I knew reacted: first sighting, fuck me!, oh my God, ha ha! Three minutes later - forgotten, and never mentioned again. You see, unlike the superficial idiot with the shaved head, they only saw the bloke they'd always known. The hair didn't matter.

None of which means that losing it at any age - particularly when you're young - isn't traumatic. Of course it is. Given a choice, my guess is that no-one would go bald. And why not do something about it if you can (avoiding combovers, crappy pieces and weaves, of course)? But, ultimately - and here comes the schmaltzy moral to my story - it's about you, not your hair. You can be a dick with hair and a charmer without. A genetic predisposition like that says nothing about you.

That said, I've got a fucking fantastic head of hair (I'm told) so who cares about those slapheads?