How to win an increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award

The increasingly prestigious target of stunts

Honestly.

You just have to say the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are increasingly prestigious at the Edinburgh Fringe and they start to be.

One of the three annual awards is the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt promoting an Edinburgh Fringe show.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Richard Herring’s clever publicity scam and Cunning Stunt Award contender in which he announced he had decided not spend lots of money on lamp post ads during the Fringe and instead spend lots of money giving away a free copy of his DVD entitled 10 to members of his audience.

Lewis Schaffer tries to hijack Richard Herring

Two days ago, Lewis Schaffer announced he will be spending the entire promotional budget for his Fringe show Lewis Schaffer is Better Than You on giving every paying member of his audience a free copy of… Richard Herring’s DVD.

Lewis Schaffer’s show is part of Bob Slayer’s Pay What You Want variation on the Free Festival.

Lewis Schaffer said: “I thought, this year, why not spend my entire £75 budget on something that people might actually want? People love Richard Herring. At first, I thought I would give them a DVD of my own shows, but my shows are unfilmable and people don’t like me as much as Richard.”

Lewis Schaffer cannily added that the offer lasts only as long as his unspecified stocks last and only, he said, “if I can strike a deal with Richard Herring to get them cheap and, if not, I’ll give a copy of a similar DVD or other gift with a value of greater than £1 to all paying customers at each show.”

I am not sure if ripping off someone else’s stunt disqualifies Lewis Schaffer from consideration for the Cunning Stunt Award or actually makes him even more considerable than Richard.

Malcolm Hardee would not have approved of any real rules (photograph by Vincent Lewis)

As there are no actual rules for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards, this is something we will have to decide nearer the date, possibly on a whim. Having any actual pre-determined rules would have been anathema to Malcolm.

A couple of days ago, I also got an email from the Fringe Office saying:

We’ve been getting a lot of enquiries about the Fringe awards for this year, so I wanted to add a line to the award summaries on our website to clarify how acts can enter their shows for the awards. Please could you let me know how acts can enter for the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award or are they nominated or just selected by the judges? And then I’ll add that to the details on the website.

The only answer I could think of giving was:

God preserve us from people actually applying for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards. We have enough problems! Acts are selected by the judges via osmosis, gossip, buzz and word-of-mouth.

Juliette Burton completed her pop video shooting yesterday

Juliette Burton, I guess, is another Cunning Stunt contender. Yesterday, I went to see her shoot the final scene for a pop video promoting her Edinburgh show When I Grow Up. It is only part of a whole raft of linked promotional ideas she has lined up. This might bode well as, last year, Stuart Goldsmith won the Cunning Stunt Award for multiple linked promotional ideas.

Juliette also got me to come along to a meeting she was having with her choreographer Omari Carter near the MI6 building. She told me she had once worked nearby, but this was less impressive than one comedian I know who was actually interviewed for a job at MI6.

Alas I arrived at cricket too late to stop Bob Slayer drinking

After that, I drove down to see the Comedians’ Cricket Match at Staplefield in Sussex, where Bob Slayer had apparently tried to swing the game by being one of three batsmen simultaneously playing.

And in a blatant, slightly drunk, attempt to curry favour before the Fringe, he tried to ingratiate himself by telling me:

“Your blog is very effective at getting publicity.”

He is publishing Phil Kay’s autobiography The Wholly Viable, financing it via an appeal on Kickstarter.

I blogged about it at the end of last month and, as of yesterday, the Kickstarter appeal for £3,333 had raised £4,727 – that’s over 141% of the target, with 2o days still to go.

“Your blog sent a few interesting backers to Phil’s Kickstarter,” Bob told me. “Russell Howard and Alan Davies are the latest backers, who also include Glenn Wool, Isy Suttie, Arthur Smith, Miss Behave, Chris Evans – who may or may not be the ginger one – Davey Byrne, who may or may not be the frontman of Talking Heads and John Steel – who may or may not be the original drummer for The Animals.”

Frankly, I think it’s more likely to be John Steed of The Avengers.

Kay supported by Alan Davies, Russell Howard, Johnny Vegas

“Facebook has referred most backers to the Kickstarter page,” figure-fancying Bob told me, “with Twitter just behind it and there have been Tweets from Richard Herring, Johnny Vegas, Boothby Graffoe and Limmy.”

So there you have it, an increasingly prestigious blog effective at getting publicity which you should be proud to read, if only for the increasing bullshit factor.

But back to reality.

At the time of posting this on Monday morning, I am just about to leave for jury service at a court somewhere in England. My jury service was supposed to end last Friday, but has trundled on to today and possibly tomorrow.

There may be a future blog in this – not that I am one to be increasingly obsessive about seeing everything as a blog possibility.

Cunning stunts of the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe. No 1: comedian Richard Herring

I am currently serving on a jury at a High Court in a city somewhere in England. I do not think I can be imprisoned for saying that in print, though who knows?

Last year’s increasingly prestigious poster

In August, I get promoted to a far more important role as one of the judges for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Every year, I tend to get slightly nervous at this point in case inspiration fails the performers and there are no worthy candidates for the annual Cunning Stunt Award, which goes to the best publicity stunt promoting a Fringe show or performer.

I have blogged recently about a couple of people who have done or are doing things which might possibly be considered publicity stunts.

In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned Sarah Hendricks on her 800 mile cycle trip from London to Barcelona. But that is not a publicity stunt; it is part of creating her show.

Another is Juliette Burton and her escapades. Among other things, she went to Buckingham Palace in a wedding dress in an attempt to marry Prince Harry and become a princess and has recorded a song in an attempt to be a pop star. Both of those are, I think, similar to Sarah Hendrickx’ bike journey: they are not stunts – they are an integral part of the creation of her show.

But Juliette’s music video to promote the song arguably is a stunt: it will go onto YouTube in July to promote the show.

Last week brought a more obvious contender for Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award nominee in the form of a press release from comedian Richard Herring in which he says he has decided not spend lots of money on lamp post ads during the Fringe and instead spend lots of money giving a free DVD to members of his audience.

The free DVD for Richard Herring’s Fringe show audiences

This is Richard’s 10th solo show in 10 consecutive years, so everyone who attends one of his live We’re All Going To Die shows at the Fringe is going to be given a free DVD entitled 10, comprising his “favourite routines from the previous nine shows, plus his thoughts on each show and an exclusive reading of a blog that inspired the new show”.

Why is he doing this? It sounds like a cunning stunt to me but, says Richard:

Fringe Festival funster Richard’s new show

“The other impetus was discovering that it cost me £3,000 to put up big lamp post adverts. Posters like these are so ubiquitous during the Fringe that I don’t think they have any impact anymore. And they’re all covered in four and five star reviews, which are usually from some obscure website or paper which isn’t fooling anyone. If we all stopped doing it then we’d save a lot of money. I thought, this year why not spend this £3,000 on something that people might actually want and give a gift to the people who actually want to see me rather than create an eye-sore annoyance to people who don’t? I think we’re throwing our money away and if other acts have three grand to spare for PR, then there must surely be more imaginative ways to spend it. Or they could just keep the £3, 000.

“Every Fringe many acts pay thousands of pounds to landlords, promoters and PR firms and end up in serious debt. It seems a shame that advertising costs are also so high, especially when the Fringe brings so much revenue to the city already. It might be time for a journalist to investigate where the money from the various poster campaigns go and what the Council’s part in it is.”

One of my fellow increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award judges – Scotsman reviewer Kate Copstick - thinks Richard’s idea is more ‘right thinking’ than actually a fully-fledged cunning stunt.

Some Fringe shows’  small lamp post posters

“Richard is absolutely right,” she tells me. “There is an indecent amount of money spent on posters and flyers at the Fringe. There is some sort of misbegotten idea that it is necessary.

“It is absolutely not.

“And the only people really benefitting are the private companies given the big hoardings by the City Council. They make a fucking fortune. Along with said Council and the University.

“I cannot remember a time when seeing a poster slathered in five star strips from ifailedgcseenglishbutnowigetfreeseats.biz.twat made me want to do anything other than smack the act in the crotch with a rolled up copy of Pointless Freeloading Fuckwits and How To Spot Them.”

Richard has posted on YouTube his explanation of his complaint against the cost of postering, which ends with the words “All I’m really trying to do is make you come and see my show.”

The Jury is still out on whether it is a worthy cunning stunt.

But Bob Slayer has been talking about doing an unknown stunt, so Richard may have some strong competition.

Nine more answers to questions asked by virgin Edinburgh Fringe comedians

What performing looks like at the Fringe

A couple of days ago, I re-blogged some two-year-old Answers to nine questions asked by first-time Edinburgh Fringe performers. 

Here is a follow-up which I also blogged two years ago. I have made slight updates, particularly in the final answer

1. IF THERE ARE ONLY TWO PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE, SHOULD I CANCEL THE SHOW?

No. Even if there is only one person in the audience, perform the show. You do not know who those people are in the audience (particularly at the Free Fringe and the Free Festival where there are no complimentary tickets). I have blogged before about an Edinburgh Fringe show performed in the early 1990s by then-unknown comedian Charlie Chuck. There were only four people in the audience. He performed the show. Two of the audience members were preparing an upcoming new BBC TV series The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and, as a direct result, Charlie Chuck was cast as ‘Uncle Peter’ in the series. After appearing in that, he was no longer unknown. The Edinburgh Fringe is all about publicity and perception.

2. BUT IF I GET LOW AUDIENCES, SURELY I AM A FAILURE?

Very possibly, sunshine, but not necessarily. In reality, it means you are an average Edinburgh Fringe performer. Unless you are on TV, you will not get full audiences unless there is astonishing word-of-mouth about your show. Scots comedian Kevin Bridges could not fill a matchbox, even in Scotland. He appeared on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow on BBC1. After that, he was filling auditoriums the size of Bono’s ego. What is important at the Edinburgh Fringe is not the size of the audience but who is in the audience and the perception of your impact by the media. It is not How Many? but Who? which is important. It can also be argued that, if you get an audience of zero then, by definition, no-one knows you had no audience, so there is actually no harm in media terms. The Edinburgh Fringe is all about publicity and perception.

3. BUT I AM GOING TO THE FRINGE TO GET SEEN BY AUDIENCES, AREN’T I?

No you are not. You are going to the Edinburgh Fringe to lose money. A comic whose name I have tragically forgotten, so cannot credit, likened it to standing in a cold shower tearing up £50 notes. You may have sold your grandmother into sexual slavery to afford this trip to the Fringe, but you are not in Edinburgh to perform shows to ordinary people. If you wanted to do that, you could have gone to the Camden Fringe or down the local pub on a Friday night. You are going to Edinburgh, the biggest arts festival in the world, to get seen by critics and, with luck, by radio and TV people, all of whom can boost your career. If you can create good word-of-mouth among the small audiences who do see your shows at the Fringe, then that may attract a few of the influential people. And, if the media perceive you as being successful, then you ARE successful even if you are not. The Edinburgh Fringe is all about publicity and perception.

4. I AM A COMEDIAN. AUDIENCES ARE NOT LAUGHING ALL THE WAY THROUGH MY SHOW. WHY?

Well, probably because you have a shit show, so tweak it or consider a career working at a call centre in Glasgow. There are some comics who should reconsider their lifestyle and bank balances. On the other hand, most comics are insanely insecure for very little reason. I have sat through many a show where the comedian thinks the audience did not like part of the show because it did not get enough laughs but I know for sure, because I was in the audience, that the punters enjoyed the show tremendously. They were just mesmerised in rapt attention during the quiet but important bits. It is all about perception.

Street art truth at Edinburgh Fringe in 2012

5. BUT WHY DON’T AUDIENCES LAUGH AT EVERY LINE?

Possibly because a good comedy script is not 100% laugh-at-every-line. Not over a whole hour. If you think your show is that funny you are either deluded, on cocaine or have a serious psychological problem (not that the first or last is any drawback in comedy). Watching a man take 10 seconds to jump off a cliff 66 times in a row is not exciting; it exhausts and bores the viewer after a while. What is exciting is a rollercoaster. A build-up followed by an adrenaline rush. Excitement followed by relief followed by excitement followed by relief followed by a climax. Ooh missus. An hour-long show is about pacing. If you remove the build-up before the punch-line, you will lose the laughter on the punch-line. Of course, the highly-experienced comic can get three subsidiary titters in the build-up followed by a big belly-laugh at the climax. Ooh misses. Ooh missus. Even (billed in alphabetical order) the brilliant Jimmy Carr, Milton Jones and Tim Vine, who mostly deal in one-liners, have pacing where their audiences can relax amid the laughter. It is all about perception.

6. SHOULD I WORRY IF I DO NOT GET REVIEWS?

Yes, but it is largely a matter of luck. I always tell people they have to play the Edinburgh Fringe on three consecutive years. The first year, no-one will notice you are there. The second year, you have some idea of how the Fringe works. The third year, people will think you are an Edinburgh institution and the media will pay some attention to you. You have to go for three consecutive years. If you miss a year, when you return, you are, in effect, re-starting at Year One. It is not just audiences but critics who change year-by-year. Critics reviewing shows at the Fringe may not have been doing it two years ago. The Edinburgh Fringe is all about publicity and perception.

7. I ONLY HAVE 30 MINUTES OF GOOD MATERIAL. WAS I WRONG TO ATTEMPT TO DO A 60-MINUTE SHOW?

Yes. You are an idiot. You should have delayed your trip to the Fringe and gone next year. Going before you are fully ready is never a good idea. Yes, go up and play a few gigs on other people’s shows. Yes, go up as part of a three or four person show. But, if you are doing your first solo 60-minute show and you have anything less than 80 minutes of good material, you risk rapid ego-destruction.

8. IF I GET REVIEWS, ARE THE NUMBER OF STARS IMPORTANT?

In Edinburgh, absolutely. The stars are everything – provided you get above three stars. Put four or five stars on your posters and flyers – with short quotes – immediately. All your competitors – and, in Edinburgh ALL other performers, however seemingly friendly, are your deadly competitors – will be using the number of stars on a review to boost their own ego or to try and deflate yours. After the Fringe is over, the stars mean bugger all. They are unlikely to bring in crowds on a wet Thursday in Taunton. But their real value lies next year at the Fringe when you can quote them and they will have some effect. And always remember the admirable enterprise of the late comic Jason Wood. Highly influential Scotsman critic Kate Copstick gave his Fringe show a one star review. The next morning, all his posters in Edinburgh proudly displayed a pasted-on strip saying “A STAR” (The Scotsman). The Edinburgh Fringe is all about publicity and perception.

9. WILL I WIN THE PERRIER PRIZE?

No. Partly because it no longer exists. The name has changed several times. But mostly because you just won’t. Don’t be silly. Fantasy is a valuable part of the performer’s art, but never fully believe your own fantasy.

You stand a better chance of winning one of the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards - the longest-running comedy awards with the same name at the Fringe. And, unlike their insignificant competitors, the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are guaranteed to run until the year 2017 because we have already had the trophies made.

It’s all about publicity and ramping or maybe camping it up.

I allegedly organise them, but intentionally try not to be too organised as that would be lacking in respect to Malcolm’s memory. Do not bother to apply to me because there is no application process, plus it interferes with my chocolate-eating.

Your show format is probably neither that original nor, frankly, that good and we will almost certainly hear about anything which actually IS that original. In Edinburgh, word-of-mouth is the strongest thing after a deep-fried Mars Bar soaked in whisky for 20 minutes.

The Edinburgh Fringe is all about publicity and perception.

To quote Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’ movie The Producers:

“When you’ve got it, flaunt it, flaunt it!”

A good show will not necessarily get noticed amid the adrenaline-fuelled mayhem in Edinburgh.

A well-publicised show will get noticed.

How to get publicity and become an award-winning comedian. With sex.

Chris Dangerfield – award winning comedian

I arranged to meet Chris Dangerfield yesterday on a street corner in Soho, London’s central sex district.

It was his idea and it seemed appropriate for a man who performed his Sex Tourist show at the recent Edinburgh Fringe and who almost won the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for getting his flyers sponsored by an Edinburgh ‘escort agency’ – punters got 10% off the agency’s ‘services’ if they produced one of Chris’ Sex Tourist flyers.

We went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Soho. Chris knows the people who own it. He lives in Soho. We had prawn salad. The restaurant owner told us someone from the prestigious and very up-market Ivy restaurant had come and asked for the recipe to the seriously delicious prawn salad and they had given the person the recipe, but missed out one vital ingredient.

Chris told me: “My brother’s name is Torren. He was named after the Torrey Canyon oil tanker, which ran aground in 1967. My parents were going to call me Cadiz – after the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker which ran aground in 1978. But the surname Dangerfield is a Romany name and they didn’t call me Cadiz because they decided ‘Cadiz Dangerfield’ would be too gypsy. So they called me Christopher. I think I would have been better off with Cadiz.

“Having lost the Cunning Stunt to a higher bidder this year,” Chris continued, “obviously I am very very bitter. I should’ve known to just stump up some cash. I’ll find some way of paying for it next year.”

“But almost everyone can say they’re an award winner,” I suggested. “When I was eleven, I won an award for handwriting. In 2010, Fringe Report gave me an award as ‘Best Awards Founder’ – so I got an award for awarding awards.”

“Well,” said Chris, “I got the 1989 Downs Comprehensive School Prize for Painting and Drawing.”

“So you’re an award-winner,” I said. “and therefore you can justifiably put on your posters and flyers that you are an award-winning comedian. I won a school prize for handwriting, so even more justifiably, I could bill myself as an award-winning writer. In fact, I may well start doing that.”

“I self-published a novel when I was 24,” revealed Chris, “and i-D magazine – cool in its day – referred to it as ‘genius’… They said This slight volume’s genius warms…”

“What was the novel called?” I asked.

“Tired etc,” shrugged Chris. ”It was a rubbish novel about a couple of blokes who grew a lot of skunk and took a lot of speed. Autobiographical obviously. It was a vanity project, but it sold a lot and got a lovely review. i-D called it ‘genius’ so I have sometimes put on posters for my comedy gigs ‘Genius (i-D)’ because I think I am, really. Essentially.”

“You know the Jason Wood story, do you?” I asked. “Kate Copstick gave his Edinburgh Fringe show a one-star review in The Scotsman so, the next day, on all his posters, he had emblazoned ‘A STAR (The Scotsman)’. Copstick told me she was filled with admiration and wanted to give him extra stars just for that.”

Chris laughed. “This year,” he said, “Marie Claire magazine did Ten Top Tips to get the most out of the Fringe written by someone called Anna Saunders and, just in passing, she said I will not be attending Chris Dangerfield’s show ‘Sex Tourist’. That was it. That was all she said. But I actually thanked her for that. I said In your how-to-get-thin-and-fuck-men rag… I don’t really want any of those people in my show anyway. I offered to do Sex Tourist in her front room for free. She hasn’t got back to me.”

“Good publicity idea,” I said.

“But I would do the show in her front room,” insisted Chris. “I toured with Trevor Lock last year, performing in living rooms. We done 45 paid shows in people’s front rooms. It was the most amazing tour. We were doing two a week. We done Sadie Frost’s living room, which was bigger than a lot of venues I’ve done. We also done three women in Bath.”

“Did you advertise for people who wanted comedy shows in their living rooms?” I asked.

“Well,” explained Chris, “Trevor had a slightly bigger profile than I had – he just put it on Facebook and Twitter and, when we got booked by Sadie Frost, Kate Moss came so there was a bit of publicity around that and Boy George booked us, so that helped.

“There was one couple who lived in a house that used to belong to Madonna or Guy Ritchie up in Lancaster Gate and they were very, very posh so it was funny telling them whore stories. Halfway through my set, one woman very quietly said: You should be in a cage. Which was alright. That was fine. She’s probably right.

“We spent so long in people’s toilets on that tour,” said Chris. “Because there’s no Green Room in people’s houses. So, while they’re all shuffling chairs round in their front room and drinking vodka, where do you prepare? In the toilet. I have a selection of photographs of Trevor in people’s toilets and he’s always having a poo. Pre-match nerves from Trevor. I’ve actually had a pee between his legs while he had a poo. It was a tour of living rooms where our relationship blossomed in toilets. We were cottaging, essentially.”

“You told me Trevor Lock had been one of your comedy heroes,” I said.

“I don’t like to do that Who inspired you? business, but Doug Stanhope is up there, who I also stalk. He occasionally asks if he can stay in my lovely Soho flat when he’s performing at Leicester Square. I tell him No, because I don’t want you puking in my hand-made shoes.

“But Trevor was a comedy hero of mine. We ended up at a gig together and I was just blown away. I absolutely was. I think he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. A friend of mine used to work with Paul Foot and told me I’ve got that Trevor Lock’s phone number so I said Well, do the wrong thing and give it to me so he did.

“I remember I came out of this Chinese massage shop – and, by massage shop, I mean brothel – and I had a spring in my step and I texted Trevor. I was in such a good mood I said: You don’t know me, but I’ve been watching a lot of your gigs and I’ve just had my balls milked by a Chinese woman and what seemed to be her daughter.

“And he texted back… I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was a fear-based response. He had constructed a sentence in which he obviously wished in no way to provoke or encourage me to contact him ever again.

“Then I saw him at a couple of more gigs and let him know that was me who had sent the text.”

“So at what point after you became chums,” I asked, “did he realise that his first fear-based reaction towards you had actually been the correct one?”

“Every time we get together to this day.” said Chris. “But he helped turn me from an open mic comedian into someone who felt he could offer a bit more. He just taught me how to be a comedian.”

“And you ended up last year playing rich people’s living rooms together,” I said.

“Not all of them were rich,” Chris corrected me. “Some people who booked us were students who’d sold tickets. So we’d go from these lovely posh houses in Lancaster Gate and Primrose Hill one day to a house the next day in Southampton where we’d be performing in some students’ kitchen which, as everyone knows, is always an unpleasant place and you’ve got a smelly bin next to you and a sink full of beer cans. It was an amazing tour.”

“I’m amazed you didn’t get the Cunning Stunt Award,” I said.

“For so many things,” said Chris with a trace of bitterness.

“A career award, maybe?” I suggested.

“I’m going to be like that bloke who left The Beatles,” said Chris.

“Stuart Sutcliffe?” I suggested.

“Pete Best,” said Chris. “Stuart Sutcliffe died. Well, I will die too.”

“As a career move?” I asked.

“Dying?” asked Chris. “No, as a Cunning Stunt. Some people with heart attacks came close to getting nominated this year, didn’t they?”

“Yes they did,” I agreed.

“Every day in my Fringe show,” Chris told me, “about 36 minutes in, after a particularly violent re-enactment of something lustful and unholy, I thought I was going to die. Every day. Actual pains in my heart. So I nearly did die.”

“Perhaps it was God trying to strike you down for your lifestyle,” I suggested.

“There’s always next year,” said Chris.

“Dying young-ish is a good career move,” I said. “The Jim Morrison factor.”

“But he didn’t die on stage,” said Chris. “Now, Tommy Cooper…”

“Yes,” I said, “Tommy Cooper out-shone Eric Morecambe in death. In life, Eric was a bigger star. But he only died offstage in the wings after he had performed a show. Tommy Cooper had a better death because he died on stage on live television.”

“So what are my options?” asked Chris. “One died on stage. One died coming off stage. So all that’s left is to walk on stage and die immediately.”

“I’m sure you’ve done that before,” I said.

Chris laughed

It seems a churlish way to end a blog.

But Chris said I should do it.

Honest.

2012 Malcolm Hardee Awards shortlist announced at the Edinburgh Fringe

Did I mention the Malcolm Hardee Show?

At the Edinburgh Fringe, when he meets people he knows in the street, comedian Lewis Schaffer’s opening line has now become: “What have you heard?”

“That’s a sign,” I told him, “either of a deep neurosis or a guilty conscience.”

“Both,” he replied.

I saw two comedy wannabes in the street this morning. Someone who looked like (but was not) John Hegley and someone who looked like (but was not) Dr Brown. You know you have a certain profile when wannabe lookalikes appear in the streets during the Edinburgh Fringe and/or when you become (as John Hegley did) one of the multiple choice answers on a primetime TV gameshow. I once saw a miniature version of Russell Brand walk across the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh. It was not him. It was a miniature version of him.

I am looking forward to miniaturised clones of Lewis Schaffer roaming the comedy streets in the next few years.

Anyway…

At lunchtime today, we eventually decided the short list for this year’s Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards. People were hassling me (which is fine) to the end.

The sex tourist’s avenging postal courgette

I got an e-mail yesterday from Sex Tourist comedian Chris Dangerfield, which said:

This morning I received a parcel. How exciting. I opened it to find a courgette and an offer to pleasure myself with it.

There was a message enclosed (see picture) which said:

HEARD THE ONE ABOUT THE COMEDIAN WHO THINKS PROSTITUTION JOKES ARE FUNNY?

HE WAS TOLD TO GO FUCK HIMSELF.

The note was signed

FEMINIST AVENGERS

“It restores my faith in humanity,” Chris told me, “that people will make such efforts for someone who – although not exactly suffering a drought of such indulgences – will happily consider and most likely do as suggested.”

This morning, I got another e-mail from Chris:

I showed the letter and the courgette to Kate Copstick. Apparently courgettes are not good for the suggested purpose. ‘They snap’ she added, as one opts for the larger end and the smaller end can’t take it.

Chris Dangerfield got nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award, but not for this.

In other Award-related news, the Awards’ designer John Ward sent me an e-mail:

It seems I have been ‘entered’ into the Life Long Passion Awards by an Italian woman who looked at me web site – The top prize is 22,000 Euros or, by the time the winner is announced at the end of the year, about £17 85p in our money…

 It appears that she works for this organisation and thinks I ‘fit the bill’ – which must be a small one, even with the Service Charge added..

The interesting thing is she works in Italy but used to work in England and can’t believe she missed me while she was over here.

Ha well.

I was so enjoying my obscurity as well.

Meanwhile Andy Dunlop, international president of the World Egg Throwing Federation, who is supervising our Russian Egg Roulette contest at the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show on Friday e-mailed me:

I am arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow, fresh from my triumph at the Worthing International Air Tattoo where I and Joel Hicks (the World Gravy Wrestling Champion) took the trophy (and a cheque for £500) for winning the Kingfisher Class. Our plan to pass the 100m metre mark and turn left for France failed at around 15m.

I will be bringing capes, bandannas and medals.  Eggs will be prepared closer to the day.

Shortly afterwards – we were supposed to meet up at 12.30pm – I got a text message from courgette expert and one of the Malcolm Hardee Award judges, Kate Copstick, which read:

Aaaaaargh. I have just been asked to talk about rape on Radio 2. I will be with you at 1pm

Eventually, we got together and this press release emerged…

____________________

The shortlist has been announced for the increasingly-prestigious, non-sponsored Fringe comedy awards which represent the true anarchic spirit of the Edinburgh Fringe. Nominees (in alphabetical order) for the three awards are:

**** THE MALCOLM HARDEE AWARD FOR COMIC ORIGINALITY *****

JAMES HAMILTON 

… for his writing, producing and co-directing work on the Casual Violence comedy sketch shows. He was nominated last year, but his comic mind is still almost inexplicably weird.

SIMON MUNNERY

… a long-time mate of Malcolm Hardee’s whose work each year is always original but who this year, according to Malcolm Hardee Award judge Kate Copstick, “has taken his comic originality to an entirely new level” in his Fylm Makker and La Concepta shows.

THE RUBBERBANDITS 

… because they are “feckin hilarious” and because we think they may have wisely not performed enough dates to qualify for the rival Fosters Comedy Awards just so they were more likely to get nominated for the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards

***** THE MALCOLM HARDEE CUNNING STUNT AWARD *****
(for best publicity stunt promoting a Fringe show)

NATHAN CASSIDY 

… for paying people £1 each to come to his stand-up show and 50p to watch his documentary. He says any money he gets from audiences at the end of his shows is being given to charity. “We think.” says Malcolm Hardee Awards organiser John Fleming, “that this says something post-modern about the economics of the present-day Fringe although, to save my life, I’m not quite sure what.”

CHRIS DANGERFIELD

… for getting his show Sex Tourist sponsored by a local escort agency. It is difficult enough to get sponsorship for Fringe shows, but (unlike most drink company sponsorship) this particular sponsorship is entirely relevant to the content of the show – and anyone with a flyer gets an alleged 10% off the escort agency’s prices.

STUART GOLDSMITH

… for turning this year’s ludicrous censorship of his and others’ listings in the Fringe Programme to his advantage and then posting a very effective YouTube video in which he said he would donate £1,000 of his own money to the Waverley Care HIV charity, but would deduct £100 from this every time a critic used a pun on the word ‘prick’ in their review.

HAVING A HEART ATTACK

The judges gave very serious consideration to nominating the concept of “having a heart attack” for the Cunning Stunt Award this year. American comedian Rick Shapiro was in hospital for three months, got out in late June and still came to the Fringe in August. Fellow American comic Andrew J.Lederer was (in his words) “buzz-sawed in two” for a heart operation but came to the Fringe less than three months later. Richard Tyrone Jones also had heart failure and Carey Marx got publicity by not coming to the Fringe because of his heart attack.

“This year,” says Malcolm Hardee judge Kate Copstick, “several very good comics have all come up with the same idea to win the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award – and that is to have a heart attack. I admire their dedication, but too many people got on the bandwagon. A couple of guys were also in car crashes. We at the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards Committee are thrilled that people are going to such lengths to seek nominations but for Health & Safety reasons – and because we’re not insured – they should maybe think about stopping here.

“Andrew J Lederer not only had a heart attack but is doing six shows per day all this week – at least, that’s what he told me. And Bob Slayer has not yet had a heart attack but is risking liver failure with his extraordinary nightly intake of drink in a sordid attempt to get noticed by the Committee.

“He and comedian Jeff Leach were allegedly mutually masturbating each other on stage at Espionage in an attempt, I think, to get a nomination. But we at the Committee are choosy in our nominations here at the increasingly-prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards.”

So ‘Having a Heart Attack’ has not been nominated.

***** THE MALCOLM HARDEE ‘ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID’ AWARD *****

TIM FITZHIGHAM

… because he has potential in depth with TV series, book, DVD and live show potential. He is also a gambler which means he might either make a million quid or end up a million quid in debt, which is very much in keeping with the spirit of Malcolm Hardee’s life.

TREVOR NOAH

… because, perhaps not in keeping with the spirit of Malcolm Hardee, Trevor epitomises ‘class’ on stage. We think he is going to be snapped up and will be playing Carnegie Hall type venues soon.

THE RUBBERBANDITS

… who are also nominated for the main Comic Originality Award. Like 2010 Award winner, Bo Burnham, their work on the internet may mean they break through massively to a worldwide audience. According to Malcolm Hardee Award organiser John Fleming, “We also want to suck up to the Youth audience who may not know of Malcolm.”

____________________

The winners of the Awards will be announced on Friday 24th August during a free-to-enter two-hour variety show at The Counting House in Edinburgh as part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival. The show starts at 2300 and ends at 0100 on Saturday morning.

The two-hour variety show hosted by Miss Behave will include the Greatest Show on Legs performing their Naked Balloon Dance, a Russian Egg Roulette contest supervised by Andy Dunlop, international president of the World Egg Throwing Federation… plus Charlie Chuck, Richard Herring, Otto Kuhnle, Mat Ricardo, Arthur Smith, Paul Zenon and a host of other unlikely acts.

The Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show will be followed by one of comedian Arthur Smith’s infamous night-time tours of the Royal Mile. In the past, these have, alas, ended in nudity, anarchic behaviour and, on one occasion, the arrest of comedian Simon Munnery by police in the mistaken belief he was a German. Arthur Smith’s tour leaves from the Castle entrance at 0200 in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are given in memory of “one of the most anarchic figures of his era” – “the greatest influence on British comedy over the last 25 years” and the “godfather to a generation of comic talent”… Malcolm Hardee.

The Awards began in 2005 (or 2007, depending on how you count) and will run until 2017 because that’s the number of trophies which were made. The Awards are not sponsored and no-one organising them or judging them takes any money to cover costs. Entry to the Awards Show is free. 100% of any monies donated by audience members on their way out of the Awards Show on Friday night will go direct to Scotsman comedy critic Kate Copstick’s Mama Biashara charity.

Comic going to hell at Edinburgh Fringe offers hug for £5, tongue kiss for £20

Craig Shaynak. He’s amiable and now he’s Google

I woke up this morning to an e-mail from amiable American actor, comic, raconteur and fat, bald, loud American guy Craig Shaynak. (Look, gimme a break – it’s the name of his website – fatbaldloud … )

I can vouch for the fact that he is amiable because, several years ago I wrote a review of one of his Edinburgh Fringe shows which I thought was constructive. But, of course, being a sensitive performer on the receiving end, he took it as being critically critical…. Nonetheless, he is still friendly when we bump into each other in the street in Edinburgh every August.

I highly recommend his show this year I Am Google, which has picked up 5-stars. Either I was wrong all those years ago or he has got much better. Almost certainly both.

His e-mail this morning, though, was a general e-mail to Free Festival performers. At the risk of him suing my ass off for breach of copyright and my past failings, this is what it said:

________

We’re past the halfway point now and things are crazy in Edinburgh as usual…

While the Festival has been fun, a few of our own have had some setbacks. There have been some missing props and performers left without a place to stay. (Someone get in touch with Lewis Schaffer if you know of a place to stay!!!!) 

________

At this point, I can reveal exclusively that Lewis Schaffer has a couple of days respite from homelessness on the streets of Edinburgh.

Because comedian Janey Godley rushed back to Glasgow when her daughter collapsed in the street, my spare room became suddenly empty and Lewis is now staying there until Sunday, when Janey returns for her Monday night, one-performance-only play #timandfreya at the Pleasance.

But enough of this blatant though worthy plug.

Craig Shaynack’s e-mail continues…

________

Recently, one of my personal favorite acts, Abigoliah Schamaun has endured a burglary. I thought it would be nice of us to pitch in and try to help her recuperate some of what she lost… Please read the message from Abigoliah below and see if you can’t pitch in and help. We’re all in this together!

********

The burgled performer Abigoliah Schamaun

Hello all,

So after having one of those great nights at the Fringe where my show sold out and meeting my favorite comedian ever, I got home to my flat to find it was broken into. Someone had crawled through my window (which LOOKED locked but apparently DIDN’T lock) and stole £300, my MacBook Pro, my digital camera and my camcorder battery, but not my camcorder (weird right?)

The police were called, the room was dusted for finger prints and it was concluded that someone did come through the window. However, he or she was wearing gloves so we can’t identify them based on finger prints. The Fringe community and others have been really helpful, finding me new accommodation, offering couches for me to crash on and what not. The only people who were not helpful were the landlord and the letting agency. They are taking no responsibility for the un-lockable window and refuse to give me back part of my money.  But, like I said, the Fringe community has been really sweet. So thank you for that! On the upside, I have new jokes for my hour long show!!

Craig suggested we do a fundraiser online so I might be able to recuperate my losses.  I know we all have spent a lot of money to be here so if it’s out of your budget, I understand. Unfortunately, I did not have insurance and any amount you can give will go a long way. If you do donate to my cause, I’ve arranged prizes:

£2 a big bear hug

£5 a big bear hug and a kiss on the cheek

£10 a big bear hug and a kiss on the lips

£20 I will give tongue

£100 prize will be privately negotiated (I have no shame as well as no laptop)

Thanks, guys, for taking the time to read this and if you can help at all you can make a donation to my PayPal account.

See you around the Fringe!

Abigoliah Schamaun

________

I have removed Abigoliah’s contact address in case she gets the wrong type of response, but will happily pass on the details of anyone who wants to genuinely get in touch.

Fringe Abigoliah: Going To Hell

I think her £20 and £100 prizes represent the true Spirit of the Fringe and almost count as a Cunning Stunt in Malcolm Hardee Award terms – a Cunning Stunt does not always have to be a conscious publicity stunt, as Stewart Lee proved in 2010.

But Abigoliah did, perhaps foolishly, fall at the first hurdle of publicity: she forget to plug her show in the e-mail.

Her show, perhaps appropriately enough, is titled Girl Going to Hell.

Now, £100? That’s almost the price of two cappuccinos in Edinburgh in August.

Seeking cunning Edinburgh Fringe stunts for Malcolm Hardee Awards

(This column was printed in Three Weeks on 15th August 2012)

The latest issue of Three Weeks – in Edinburgh

Debate always rages at the Fringe about whether people should use a professional publicist. Is forking out £2000-£3000 actually going to get you more coverage? As most performers are organisationally doolally, it may be worth the money.

I have never used a PR because I have a background in promotion and marketing and I am fairly organised and pro-active. But not this year. As I am only staging one show – the one-off, two-hour Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show at the Counting House on Friday 24 Aug (always plug your listings!) I figured I would take a leaf out of the late Malcolm Hardee’s own book… and just bumble along, do things late and see what happens.

As my awards show – the REAL Fringe Awards show – is on the final Friday in the final week of the Fringe, I think issuing press releases or even trying to get coverage at the start of the Festival would have been pointless. There is no point advertising products which are not immediately available on the shelf. People reading on 4 Aug a plug for a single one-off show on 24 Aug would have forgotten by the time the show was imminent.

So I decided on a late publicity push. This had the added bonus that I could be lazy. It also meant that, to an extent, I might actually know what was in the bloody show by the time I got started. This has not necessarily proven to be true. All that is certain is that it is full of very bizarre acts. And the winners of the three annual awards will be announced.

At the start of the Fringe, I was not 100% certain that legendary cabaret act Miss Behave would compère the show, despite the fact she is billed in the Fringe Programme. She managed to bugger her back in an accident immediately before the Festival started. (She was supposed to compère the show last year, too, but contracted near-fatal meningitis – perhaps she is trying to tell me something). But now she is fine. Better than fine. Bouncing with outrageousness. I had booked the brilliant Janey Godley as a back-up compere and she will now be doing an 8-minute set and – I hope – joining in our Russian Egg Roulette contest.

Yes, not only are we having the late Malcolm Hardee’s comedy troupe The Greatest Show On Legs perform their infamous Naked Balloon Dance, we are also having the international president of the World Egg Throwing Federation come to Edinburgh to supervise a Russian Egg Roulette contest. Two people face each other across a table. Six eggs in a box. Five are hard-boiled. One is raw. The contestants smash an egg against their own forehead (as in Russian Roulette but with eggs) until one of them loses by smashing the raw egg onto their forehead. It is a knock-out contest. Possibly literally. One winner. Comedians Arthur Smith, Richard Herring and other un-nameable ‘Names’ have said they will take part.

And then, at 1.00am on Saturday morning, the show will not finish. It will blend imperceptibly, though presumably chaotically, into one of Arthur Smith’s near legendary (even people who went on them could not quite believe they happened) night-time tours of Edinburgh. These used to end in nudity, drunken shouting, the arrival of the police and sometimes arrests. I think Simon Munnery was once mistakenly arrested by the Leith Police for being a German. But maybe things will have mellowed.

I could have put none of this in a press release at the start of the Fringe. Russian Egg Roulette appeared as a possibility two weeks ago. The link to Arthur Smith’s tour only became a possibility last week. Which reminds me… the website still has last year’s details on it! But not by the time you read this. See www.malcolmhardee.co.uk/award

Why I cried this morning as I drove into Edinburgh for the Fringe comedy shows

Lewis Schaffer – Where are these posters?

I drove up from London to Edinburgh overnight last night.

At 4.00am, in a service station 65 miles from Edinburgh, I checked my e-mails.

One was from the American comedian Lewis Schaffer. It said starkly:

“My posters were lost at the Three Sisters venue. Three Sisters lost them. Not the German delivery company.”

I think this means Lewis will have a good Fringe because, without unhappiness, he is never happy. He thrives on adversity.

Another e-mail was from comedian Darren Walsh reminding me that, on Monday, he “will attempt to tweet a pun based on the name of every single comedian (who has a Twitter account) performing at the Edinburgh Fringe this year… Twitter only allows 1,000 tweets per day. So, from more than 2,695 shows, I will pick 1,000 comedians and make 1,000 puns. Some will be good, some will be bad and some will be downright terrible.”

He added that this had already been reported by the comedy website Chortle. Presumably he pointed this out because I have always said anyone trying to win the annual Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best Fringe publicity stunt who actually has to TELL us about the existence of their publicity stunt has, by definition, failed.

I wish Darren luck but, this year, he is up against stiff competition even to get nominated. More of that, I imagine, in the next three weeks.

But it was neither of those e-mails which made me cry.

I had driven up the motorways of England to ELO’s Time, the Pet Shop Boys’ greatest hits, Ray Manzarek’s version of Carmina Burana and Lily Allen’s album It’s Not Me, It’s You. I have had that Lily Allen album playing on my car stereo up to Edinburgh for each of the last three years. I guess its mix of sex, drugs and swearing is a good preparation for almost four weeks at the Fringe; and, if you are that way inclined, the slightly world-weary cynicism (or is it realism?) of the album does not go amiss either.

What made me cry was this.

I had turned off the car stereo and, as I drove down the hill into Morningside, the Loch Lomond song came into my mind.

O ye’ll tak’ the high road an’ I’ll tak’ the low road
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye
For me an’ my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond

I never thought much of the song – often sung as a rousing chant – until someone I vaguely knew died.

I occasionally worked with someone in television. His wife was a high-flyer in business. She died suddenly. So it goes.

She was, I guess, in her early forties. She was Scots.

At her funeral, in a quiet English village church, a sole female singer with the purest voice imaginable sang Loch Lomond slowly, as it was meant to be sung – as a lament.

By yon bonnie banks an’ by yon bonnie braes
Whaur the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
Whaur me an’ my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond

As I understand it, the song is about the aftermath of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s failed invasion of England in 1745. About two soldiers. One of whom survives; one of whom is killed. So it goes. The dead soldier sings that, in his coffin, he will reach Scotland before the soldier who survived.

O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye
For me an’ my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond

Sung at that funeral perhaps fifteen years ago, with the light streaming in through the church’s windows and that pure, lone voice singing, it was unimaginably sad and this morning, as I drove into Edinburgh, I cried at the memory.

‘Twas there that we parted in yon shady glen
On the steep, steep sides o’ Ben Lomond
Whaur in soft purple hue, the Hieland hills we view
An’ the moon comin’ oot in the gloamin’

By yon bonnie banks an’ by yon bonnie braes
Whaur the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
Whaur me an’ my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond

The wee birdies sing an’ the wild flowers spring
An’ in sunshine the waters are sleeping
But the broken heart, it kens nae second spring again
Tho’ the world knows not how we’re grieving

By yon bonnie banks an’ by yon bonnie braes
Whaur the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
Whaur me an’ my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond

At the service station at 4.00am this morning, I also read that the writer and occasional wit Gore Vidal had died yesterday. So it goes. One of the pithy sayings attributed to him is:

It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.

It could be the motto of many performers at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Let the comedy begin.

2005: I have this idea for a cunning stunt involving comic Janey Godley

In 2005, Janey Godley was allegedly Innocent

In August 2005, three years before we first thought of the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt at the Edinburgh Fringe, I was writing a blog from the Fringe for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

On 4th August, this was what I wrote about Scots comedienne Janey Godley who, that year, was performing her show Janey Godley Is Innocent. The hardback version of her best-selling autobiography Handstands in the Dark had been published two months before this…

_____________________________________________________

I HAVE THIS GREAT IDEA

“I think you should get kidnapped and murdered,” I said three weeks ago. “Think of the publicity.”

“No,” Janey Godley said sharply.

“You get publicity, the show gets publicity and you go down in Fringe history.”

“I’m no getting murdered. It’s no happening,” she told me.

“Look,” I said, “You get kidnapped in public on the Saturday night before your show starts by an unknown but very disgruntled East Glasgow gangster who has read you autobiography and taken offence. So the book gets plugged too.”

“No.”

“The kidnapping would have to be in public with lots of witnesses,” I persisted. “If it happens mid-evening or late on Saturday, it will miss the Sunday papers but it will hit the Monday papers.

“Around 11.40 on Monday morning, Ashley announces – with a photo of your bloodied corpse sent in by the kidnapper – that her beloved mother Janey Godley has been killed. She can do tears and hysteria and everything. It will show off her acting skills. This will hit the lunchtime TV bulletins but not give them time to check facts in detail and it will get into the late editions of the Glasgow and Edinburgh evening papers: COMEDIAN KIDNAPPED AND KILLED AT EDINBURGH FRINGE.

“Later on that same day – Monday afternoon – around 1715, you re-appear and announce it is a stunt just in time to make the later editions of the Wednesday morning papers. And the early evening TV bulletins if they carried your death in their lunchtime bulletins. Your show opens on Thursday night and, as part of the show – the climactic story – you explains how you are innocent of this tacky stunt – You were persuaded into it against your better judgement by your beloved daughter whom you indulge too much – So… Janey Godley Is Innocent!”

“Fuck off,” said Janey Godley.

“The important thing here,” I continued, “is the timings. It all happens between late-night Saturday and teatime Monday. It has to be fast so that, at each point, you give the journalists just enough time to report the story but not-quite-enough time to fully check the background details.

“Even if it gets exposed midway through as a stunt, provided the media report it as a stunt, you get the press publicity for the show that you would have got anyway. You can’t lose. You could get prosecuted for wasting police time, but it’d be worth that in publicity terms and you could argue any fine would be tax-deductible for professional publicity.”

“NONONONOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo” Janey Godley shouted at me. “Y’er a crazy fucking nutter! Ya fanny!… And don’t encourage my daughter to plot my murder… You know what the family’s like.”

“But she gets to show her acting ability as the distraught daughter and….”

“I will hunt you down and kill you like an animal…” muttered Janey Godley.

I don’t mind being called a lady, but I am not English, despite the Italian slur

Does this chin make you think I am an English lady?

Last night, I flew back to the UK to what seems to be a tsunami of publicity – on BBC Radio 2, on French TV, in UK newspapers and online about my fellow Scot Janey Godley’s ‘Train Tales’ Twitter saga.

I myself wrote about Janey’s allegedly public-privacy-invading Twitters (soon, perhaps to become an Edinburgh Fringe show) in this blog and in the UK edition of the Huffington Post two days ago… and the US edition of the Huffington Post re-visited the story in a second article yesterday.

Janey is very good on publicity. And she is not alone.

In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned some of the stories in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera.

Italian-born, mostly British-based comedian Giacinto Palmieri commented:

“I think what is missing in Italy is the newspaper market ‘segmentation’ between broadsheets (most of which nowadays are tabloid-size) and tabloids. So, Corriere della Sera and Repubblica are a mix of ‘serious’ articles of the type you could find in the UK in the Guardian or the Telegraph but also the kind of gossip you mentioned. Having said that, it’s also true that politics in Italy is often about personalities, so political reporting tends to be quite gossipy in nature.”

I prefer to think of it all as admirable Italian eccentricity.

Yesterday, in a shopping centre in Milan, I spotted a tanning salon where people go to get fake tans. The temperature was 102F and sun is not an unknown phenomenon in Italy.

“A tanning salon? Is this some new thing?” I asked my English friend who has lived in Italy for almost 25 years.

“No,” she told me. “They’ve been here as long as I have.”

“Why would Italians want fake tans?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s a mystery.”

Giacinto Palmieri was born and grew up in Milan. I asked him what he thought of my view of Italians as ever-so-slightly eccentric – in an admirable way.

“I’ve been following your reports from Milan with great interest,” he told me. (He will go far.) “They remind me a bit of what I’m trying to do with my own comedy as an Italian in Britain: showing how things that are too familiar to be noticed in the eyes of the ‘natives’  can be shown as surprising, weird and (hopefully) funny in the eyes of an outsider.

“Having said that,” he continued, “I have also enjoyed observing the observer and I need to confess a mental association you might not find very flattering.

“There is this comedian in Italy called Enrico Montesano who, a long time ago, had a character called La romantica donna inglese – The romantic English lady. She was a comedic equivalent of the mother in A Room With a View. Her catchphrase (uttered in a strong mock English accent) was ‘Molto pittoresco’ – ‘Very picturesque’ – a comment she found suitable for almost everything she saw.

“I don’t know what Montesano’s source was, but the character was spot on. It really seemed to capture something true about the English visitors’ view of Italy. Please don’t take it as a criticism: your remarks are, indeed, very interesting and often funny. Besides, nobody can be held responsible for his free associations.

“By the way, I tried to find a seamless link into a casual mention of my Edinburgh Fringe show Giacinto Palmieri: Pagliaccio at the Newsroom, 2-26 August, 7.00pm… but I couldn’t find it.”

Relentless publicity is a vital thing for any comedian: which is unfortunate, as an awful lot of comedians – Pagliacci indeed - are ironically so lacking in self confidence that they are terrified of the self-exposure in print and in the media that they confusingly crave on stage.

But Giacinto Palmieri, like the unstoppable force of nature that is Janey Godley, is different and will clearly go far.

Well, he will in this blog.

But not if he calls me English again!