I was weirdly obsessed with watching VHS tapes of Morecambe & Wise and Scotch & Wry as a small child. I loved the ridiculousness of these men, who all looked 1,000 years old, dressing up silly and acting daft.
I realised the other day that today’s equivalent of watching the Morecambe & Wise 1977 Christmas special as a three-year-old in 1996 is watching the first series of Peep Show, which I hope someone is doing.
My first exposure to getting laughs was charming the grannies in Stuart’s the Bakers. They were an easy crowd, but it was still an enjoyable feeling.
Here are five moments from my career that I’ll never forget…
BBC WRITERSROOM SKETCH COMEDY
In 2014, there was a call-out on BBC Writersroom for young writers to submit for a sketch show about the Scottish Independence Referendum called What’s Funny About… The Indyref?.
I submitted material and ended up getting quite a few sketches in the finished show. I couldn’t believe it.
I had to take a day off cutting the grass at my local golf club to go into a writers’ room at the BBC in Glasgow. It was all very exciting.
If it wasn’t for this show for young writers, I doubt I’d have ever had the confidence to step foot on stage and do stand-up, which I did at The Stand in Edinburgh a short while after.
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MAKING FRIENDS WITH OTHER NEW COMEDIANS IN 2015
I started stand-up in 2015 as I was in the final semester of university. There’s something special about starting out with people of a similar age, all trying to do this weird thing together.
All the gigs, car journeys, post-gig pints, daytime coffees and writing sessions… Now I’m going to their weddings.
I met Steve and Marc that year too, who I now do the Some Laugh podcast with, which has been very good to us.
It’s insane that a few years on we’re chatting at the Pavilion Theatre together in front of more than 1,200 people.
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DYING ON MY ARSE AT STOCKTON GONG 2018
In 2018, I travelled with three other Scottish comedians to do the gong show at Stockton-on-Tees. Seven-hour round trip.
The first three all made their five minutes; I went on fourth and got gonged off after a minute. Gong shows are ruthless, and though I don’t think they’re particularly good for what is supposed to be an art form, they are good for humbling you.
I was mainly gutted because I’d forgotten that Spain were playing Portugal in the World Cup that night, and it ended up being a classic game – a 3-3 draw with Ronaldo scoring a hat-trick.
Point being: this is about as bad as it gets and I never quit. Under the ‘Greatest Games’ tab of the FIFA website, the match is described as ‘an extraordinary evening’ – and I suppose I had one of my own.
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DEBUT FRINGE SHOW “MR. NOVEMBER”
Growing up near Edinburgh and being a comedy fan, I went to a lot of Fringe shows as a teenager.
Doing a proper Fringe show was always my aim. After years doing double-handers and mixed-bill shows, I did my first solo show in 2019.
Your first solo Fringe show is a steep learning curve, and unless you’re prodigiously talented and/or getting a lot of help, you’re going to learn the hard way by making mistakes.
I’d do it all differently now, but that’s life, and I’m glad I took the plunge. In the last two or three years at the Fringe, I feel like I’ve got a handle on what it is I do and how best to go about it.
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BEING CAST IN ‘SCOT SQUAD’
I had only been doing comedy for a couple of years when I got an audition for the police mockumentary Scot Squad.
The Comedy Unit, who make Scot Squad, made a lot of my favourite comedies I’d watched as a kid, so it was surreal to be in one of their shows.
I started writing for it and was then lucky enough to become ‘story producer’. We also won the Scottish BAFTA for Best Scripted Show, which was cool. I got a free dinner and met Alan Cumming.
I’ve worked for the Comedy Unit on bits and bobs ever since under different guises, and they’ve been so good to me and taught me so much.
I currently direct a topical sketch radio show for them on BBC Radio Scotland called Noising Up, which I’m skiving from to write this.
None of this would have happened had someone from the team not spotted me doing an open spot in 2017.
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Stuart McPherson: Crisps and a Lie Down is at CabVol 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) during the Edinburgh Fringe between 28 July – 24 August. Buy your tickets here.
