Episode 4 Late 'n' Live Guide to Comedy

This programme contains strong language. Every August in

Scotland's permanently sunny capital,local audiences warmly

welcome performers from the furthest parts of the globe to

celebrate the arts in all their forms. And after celebrating the

art, they get drunk and head to Late 'n' Live. About 10 o'clock, 11

o'clock at night, locals ask themselves a question,"Shall we go

and see a late show?" "Aye." "Am I a bit of BLEEP?" "Aye." "Late 'n'

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE. Hello.The first ever after-hours

comedy club began over 25 years ago at the Gilded Balloon Theatre.

How are we, Late 'n' Live? It's sort of a mixture of a golf club

and a remand centre. There's a lot of the conviviality of a golf club,

but a lot of the relentless menace of a remand centre. The angriest

man in the world. "That's right!" Loads of mad, scaldy-looking

Scottish people like they're in a boiling pot and going..."What the

fuck is that?! "Back, back, back in your seat! No, you're going to miss

it, it's fucking brilliant! Back! Back in your seat, it's fucking

fantastic, don't go! Don't go! Oh, fuck! If you could have been in

standing at the wings, and somebody said to you,"Listen, Fred, actually,

you don't need to go on and do this," you would have said 100% of

the time, "Thank you! See you!" night after night, three comics, a

compere and a band have. Throughout this series, we've relived classic

moments with the stars who were there. So in tonight's final peek

behind comedy's beer-stained curtain, we ask, "Of all the places

in the world a club like this could exist, why Scotland? "The Scottish

audience are the best in the world. No-one else likes being brutalised

more than you. And using previously unreleased footage, find out what

today's international stars of comedy discovered about playing to

a Scottish crowd. Who's in from Scotland?

CHEERING. Who's not from Scotland?

CHEERING. Come on, let's take it back. The

punters at Late'n'Live are the comedy aficionados,the guys and

girls who go to Edinburgh every year. The Scots who live there and

who think they know what funny is, how dare you come on their soil,

take their money and their freedom and not make them laugh?! Is

anybody in from Edinburgh? CHEERING.

You lazy bastards! Right, right, I think I'll go to a fucking festival.

Aye, yeah, I think so! There we go. Fucking fantastic, but I'm a bit

knackered. Bit knackered. Yeah, I think I'll go home. If one nation

knows how to endear itself to the Scottish crowd, it's the Irish.

Late-night favourite Jason Byrne has been spinning his Celtic charm

in Edinburgh since the late '90s, but he's been Irish a lot longer

than that. Go wild for Jason Byrne! CHEERING AND WHISTLING.

Is there any Americans in? CHEERING.

Oh, fucking brilliant, ya mad bastards. Slagging off the

Americans so the Scottish will laugh at me. Here, look, do you

want to buy this? Look, some Irish fairy water. Oh, the fairies are in

there. Can you hear them having a party?!

Oh, they're laughing, they're laughing.

# Diddle-di-dee di-dee di-dee. # A-diddle-di-dee-di-dee.

# Oh, the fairies! Do you want to buy this for �1

million? We are good storytellers, so, see, that's why it's hard to

make Irish and Scottish audiences laugh, because they all have funny

stories. So they're coming to watch you, and are going,"Well, this

better be funnier than my story. "Yanks think in Ireland, they think

that all the pubs are fucking mad. # Diddle-ee diddle-ee-dee.

# Diddle-ee diddle-ee-dee. #. There's people in Ireland fucking

talking about the internet."Oh, did you get a new car?" "How's the

family?" Everything's fan-fucking- tastic, next minute a little man

will burst in the door and go,"Quick, the Americans are

coming! Everybody change!" And everybody in the pub grabs a flat

cap, puts on a big red beard, they fuck hay all over the fucking

ground, grab instruments from everywhere, the Americans come in

and the whole pub goes: # Ah, diddle-ee-dee, diddle-ee-dee.

# Diddle-eee diddle-ee-dee. #. Top o' the mornin', we're fucking

eejits, give us a hundred pound, thanks very much. And we're all

brought up badly. All Scottish and Irish people, we're all brought up

really badly, especially my age group where our parents...Actually,

my mother once said to me,this is brilliant, this is good background,

she said, when I had my first child,she goes, "Now don't ever,

everlet your children get in the way of your social life." Which is

a great bit of advice! There's no American or English or anybody's

going to advise that, you know! "Make sure you manage to

getyourself hammered as much as possible, and the kids'll just

raise themselves." That's why we're so funny. Irish and Scottish people,

we've been entertaining ourselves since we were born. The fucking

Americans, Jesus Christ, when they come to Ireland, we can sell them

anything we fucking want. And same when they come to this city, you

scamming bastards! I'm up to about 50 effs! Oh look, it's Arthur's

Seat, yes, it used to be a volcano, yeah. And that Tattoo thing, you

Americans have got to stop giving those fuckers money for that Tattoo.

Why am I swearing so much?! I couldn't believe it! Out come loads

of people. # Look at my uniform.

# Look at my uniform. # Oh, look at their uniform.

# Look at their uniform.$$NEWLINE # Look at their uniform!

# Look at his uniform!$$NEWLINE # Ooh, look at his uniform.

# Oh, look at that uniform. # Ooh, cannons! Ooh!

That'll be 50 quid, you yanky fuckers! Thanks very much! Fucking

nuts, man! Scottish people'don't mind you slagging off them, as long

as you're a Celt. So if you're Irish, like I am, or you're

Scottish, or you're Welsh, even, you're allowed to slag off

everybody, but if you're English and you go,"Eh, what about the

Scottish?" "Bastard! Bastard!" Shut your fucking mouth about us!" Right,

but if I go out and go,"Ah, ya Scottish wankers!" "Nice one!" I do

remember seeing an English comic come up and he was renowned as a

very smooth compere. He lost it at a point where he said, "So, is

there anyone up here from the north? Manchester, Liverpool?" You

could see the crowd and everybody just go, "Ohh, weirdly, we must be

more southerly than that." What are we? Have we gone all the way over

the top of the planet and back down again?" So, that was the beginning

of the end for him. Yeah, most of the really bad deaths I've seen

have been English. It's not fair to say the crowd'll go for you just

cos you're from south of the border. No, they'll go for you if you're

from across the Atlantic as well. Hello! Yes, I was on Sabrina The

Teenage Witch. Yes, I was. I've done this for ever. I performed in

front of the President. Like, big people. Giant, like at Carnegie

Hall, or Radio City Music Hall, in front of 10,000 people. Nothing.

Drunk, Scottish boys terrify me. It's OK. Whenever I hear a man

heckling, all I really hear is, "I've a tiny, wee penis, I've a

tiny, wee penis, I can barely find it. "That noise come off the crowd,

"Oooooooooh!" They could so do over New World comedians, Americans or

Canadians. They don't have that noise. (AMERICAN ACCENT) "Fuck you,

buddy!" "Oooh, he said "fuck you!" You feel like they could do it any

time. "Right!" They're having none of it. Sometimes, you can go the

other way. You can deliberately try and be a bit quieter. Try and draw

attention, use stagecraft in that direction. Sometimes that'll work.

Sometimes it won't. HE IMITATES HECKLING.

The noise from round the edgesjust gets louder and louder! Until

whatever you were saying is utterly irrelevant. So, how do you win over

a rowdy, drunk Scottish audience? Well, Australian Brendon Burns

thinks he has one answer. And it isn't with compliments. I'm not

going to suck up to you too much, cos then I know you'll start

throwing bottles. I'm fully aware, so...I'll abuse you now! Cos you

seem to love it. You have some sort of self-esteem issues going on.

Here's something the Scottish audience love. You have to abuse

them, but you have to be right. Scottish audience are the best in

the world. No-one else likes being brutalised more than you. No-one

heckles and wants to fucking lose. But Scotland, they do. "You're the

fucking BLEEP, now, lay into me!" A Scottish audience demands presence

from their comic. I don't mean "ta- da!". I mean they demand you

acknowledge you are in a room full of people. That you are not doing

the set you would to a television camera. That this is a live scene,

and it's been here for years and there is a tradition.

Quite frankly, you people are so bizarre-sounding, I can't even tell

what sentiment you're expressing. You men sound like trucks backing

over a bucket of whoopee cushions. You women sound like cats trying to

bark. No wonder you listen to the bagpipes. It's the only way to

drown out the sound of your women at night.

HE SQUAWLS. Are you happy, sad? I can't tell! I

don't know whether you're celebrating a birthday or you've

lost your infant. It's 1am, you're Scottish equally likely!

LAUGHTER I think it's gall. Scottish people

really appreciate gall. If you nail something, you can be as

denigrating as possible, if it's true. And Scottish audiences love

having the piss taken out of them, but it has to be accurate. That's

your job as a comedian. Accurate, eh? Well, if you're Aussie, Steve

Hughes, you're spot on. You and your fucking blood sausage. What

the fuck is that shit? What are you up to? Black pudding? I know that

British people eat it, English people, Irish people, but you Scots

are the only fuckers I've seen have a full one, dipped in batter,

wandering round shopping for clothes. "Aye, this is fucking

good!" This gig's going all right for Late 'n' Live. "It's fucking

tradition!" Fuck tradition! It might've been one 400 years ago,

when you lived in a hut, freezing your fucking arse off, fighting the

English every day. "I'm a bit run down." Have some blood, mate,

that'll sort you out! Not any more! You live in Edinburgh, in a flat

with a DVD player and a hot girlfriend. Have some hummus, you

fat BLEEP! LAUGHTER.

If the visiting comics have done their research and not been

lazyabout it, that will give them some Brownie points with the

audience. And if it's good, and - I'll say something a bit twee - but

if it's honest, I think the Scottish audience will respect the

honesty of what they say. You know? And let them have a laugh at our

expense. So, not just accuracy. Honesty works too. But what crowd

isn't won over by well-observed local references? Case in point,

the charming Stephen K Amos. Hey, I love Edin-boro.

CHEERING. Edin-boro is fantastic. Why?

Because there are cobbled streets. LAUGHTER.

The good thing about going to Scotland is, all the guys are in

Edinburgh for the whole month. You have to get immersed in Edinburgh,

in Scottish life. So, I've been there for 12, 13 years. Stuff has

happened to me on a regular basis. I checked into a fucking great flat

in Edinburgh when I got here. It was in a place called Terrars Croft.

Have you heard of it? No, not lucky me. It was a shithole. I got in

there, a flat that I'd rented, I'd paid money for and I go into the

living room and above the fireplace was a huge life-size portrait of a

gollywog. And I was like, "What?! I'm not staying here!" And stuff

like that. It's true! I went to a fish and fish shop -that's true. I

said to the lady,"Is that cod or haddock?" She went, "Fush!" And

that's the typical Scottish welcome that I've come to enjoy. Aviemore

is in the Scottish Highlands. The locals call it the Hollywood of the

Highlands. I can assure you, it's not. There are no ethnic minorities

there, there are no midgets, there are no women. Well, obviously there

are, but you can't quite tell the difference. I asked this creature,

"Excuse me, are there any black people here?" And she goes "Oh! Oh,

aye. Oh, aye. There's Black Tony". I was intrigued. I had to meet

"Black Tony". I found him. He was Spanish. Wow. Did you hear that

accent there? You know, I actually thought he sounded more Scottish

than Lulu. How many people here are Scottish? Excellent, thank you, sir.

"Me! What are you gonna do about it?" I know you're thinking "At

least we've got culture". That was the worst Scottish accent I've ever

done in my career. Let's do that again. It's just a bit more

guttural. The harder they are at Edinburgh, the more fruity the

voice gets. "I've got a knife, man. I'm no joking". I've just seen two

drunken teenagers sat on a bench, abusing tourists. You don't buy a

ticket for a show in Edinburgh. Just watch that shit. It's

brilliant. They were shouting abuse at tourists, going "You bastards,

fucking bastards, fuck off. And then one of them threw their empty

can of cider on the floor. And his pal went "Robert, no! We're binge

drinkers, but we're not litterbugs". Because I lived in Scotland for

quite a while, I am a chameleon when it comes to accents. So I can

pull it out of the bag if I have to. I go "Like me, I'm just like you.

Please like me. That's lovely. I'm even wearing a semmit. I think it

might be a vest". I used to live in Glasgow. I love the way Glaswegians

speak. They have a habit of pointing out the most important

words in a sentence before say the sentence. They say "See you, you

look BLEEP. See me?" It is like "The following sentence includes

these important keywords". From my own point of view, this accent I've

been putting on for a number of years seems to have worked. I know,

mine's worked for me too. Actually, though, if you want to learn a

proper Scottish accent, you really have to listen to Andrew Maxwell.

And he's Irish. Edinburgh's shit, isn't it? I don't fucking mean that.

My family are from all sorts of places around. BLEEP. Andrew's

Leith accent is pinpoint. And I, as a Scot, think it's hilarious. I'm

not trying to win them over, I just find it a funny accent. "I'm no

joking". But it just makes me laugh. There are various Scottish voices

that make me laugh. If you're from south of the border, you probably

think he's just doing a Scottish accent. But we know.

We know within two or three streets, where he is doing it. We get down

there, and we get attacked by a fucking squirrel. A fucking

squirrel from Leith. It came out of the rocks like a fucking sea

squirrel. We thought it was a rat, but it had a bushy-tailed and was

matted and dirty. And it just ran at us. There you are! And it

fucking stared us down. I got stared down by a fucking squirrel.

I'm not squared off you fuckers, but that squirrels get me. Stared

me down and fucked off, and we found it half an hour later. It had

probably never been up a tree in its life. Never eaten an acorn. It

was eating the remnants of a fucking fish supper. Needs a bit of

sauce,. The top of the walk to the bottom of the walk is probably

about a mile. And at the bottom, it is all hunched over people, just

dodging about. And at the top, you are into the new town, some of the

most wealthiest genteel real-estate in the country. There are posh guys

with surnames as first names, guys called Campbell, people whose

parents locked in. There is Campbell. You know, just big guys,

Scottish guy is. You can barely detect an accent"but I wear a kilt

at weddings. So not everyone can be the perfect

Scottish accent, but if you are as talented as American comic Rich

Hall, you don't need it. You can get right under the skin of a

Scottish audience and win them over with your encyclopedic intention to

detail. Stand by for a masterclass in Scottish crowd-pleasing.

You say stupid things intelligently. Or maybe it is intelligent things

stupidly. Can't remember. It is not fucking rockets surgery.

Once you have established where you are from an something funny about

it, it is time to move on. Audiences think, what do you know

about us? You are supposed to be the king of observation. What have

you noticed about us? One thing I fucking love about Scotland is the

money. It is like a treasure map. There is some weird shit going on.

Occasionally, you will see research and development. If you ever saw

Darwin America, something fucking went wrong. America is like, In God

We Trust. Here? Darwin. That is why I love Scottish money. What? Y is

Scottish currency not accepted in England? What is this? University

Challenge? Well, you are looking at a man fighting for his life. That

is what it is. Dodging bullets. HECKLING.

Come on, Rich Hall. Why is Scottish money not accepted in England?

is! It seems at this point, I could sneak off and no one would notice.

I don't know, sir, but I promise I will look into it. Next year, I

will do a one-hour show a why Scottish money is not accepted in

the South. Everyone will know. think Rich Hall thrives on that. He

is very aware of Scottishness. His very in tune with the Scottish. And

they sense that. Scottish audiences are very blunt. They have paid

their money, and they don't want to see a waste of time. I have learned

to might not to spend money south of the border if it has pictures of

people you have never heard of before on it. If the Proclaimers

are on a �10 note, but is when this country has fucking arrived. That

is pretty much Edinburgh. You don't know what is going to happen.

Exactly. So I guess only one question remains. How do you end up

a series that combines bikes surfing, leg injuries and

unspeakable acts towards jumpers? The answer is simple, of course. A

song. In high last clip from 2001, to mark the final night of the

Edinburgh Fringe, Canadian comic Sean Coen took to the stage to sing

Oh, Edinburgh, his lyrical tribute and fond farewell to the city

combining accuracy, honesty, local references and the most magnificent

attention to detail. Thanks to the amazing audiences who have come out.

For in a stage of comics and a VAT and alcohol, and ladies and

gentlemen, this is what you get. Every comic in the room, come on

down? Where would you ever hear, can we have every comedian on the

stage now, please? Every comedian in Edinburgh on stage. Everyone is

going up on stage. Look at that. my God, there I am. I was beside

myself at this, because this was my first Edinburgh. The song at the

end was fantastic. I guess you felt as if you deserved it. You deserved

to have an experience on the late stage that was positive after all

the shit you had gone through. 19 comedians singing.

# Oh, Edinburgh, I love your cobbled street.

# From the grandeur of your town to the peaks of Leith. # From the

castle on the hill to Wester Hills. # To the places in the sewers where

the midgets sleep. # Oh, Edinburgh. # I have come to you again. It's

like Live Aid. People in Africa would look at that and say, these

people need help. # When I'm feeling lonely, you surround me in

your mist. # Your guide me to the nearest pub.

# And I get pissed. # Oh, Edinburgh.

# Shine your light on me. # From the moment that I saw you, I

knew I would never more be free. # Oh, Edinburgh.

You diamond of the north. # I want to make love to you on the filthy

Firth of Forth. The filthy Firth of Forth is great.

# Oh, Edinburgh. # It always makes me smile. # To

see a naked, drunken man running down the Royal Mile.

Johnny Vegas. It's really sad. I'm looking for myself. I think I'm

probably tied to a chair backstage. # I eat a deep-fried Mars bar.

There's Dara, with his big shiny head! Dara's huge noggin rising

like a giant big potato from the horde.

# Oh, Edinburgh. Me, with my hanky. Sweaty man. Oh, God. # As I wander

through the grass market, I watched an old man pee.

I can't read the lyrics. # I think he is my friend.

# He speaks to me in mysteries, then urinates again. # Oh,

Edinburgh. Adam and I know this off by heart! # Oh, Edinburgh. That on

stage now would probably cost about �1 million sterling. With all the

agents holding us. # Oh, Edinburgh. # From the West down to the east. #

Your air is always rich with the cloying stench of yeast.

# Oh, Edinburgh. # whoa, Edinburgh. # Oh, Edinburgh.

# Oh, Edinburgh. Oh, man. # I love... You. Look, none of us

have a career. But now we are all on telly, and will want money. We

would never do this together unless we all had contracts. We are all