… and by ‘he’ I mean drinking-staying-up-all-night-Luke. I had an early(ish) night last night to prepare myself for Arthur Smith’s pissed-up chat show tonight. Arthur told me back in April when I recorded for his Balham Bash he was considering doing this show at Edinburgh and it’s been the ‘extra’ event I’ve been desperate to do since then.
I love all the little extra gigs you get to do up here. I did a short set at The Cow Cafe in The Underbelly the other day and I’m curating a couple of hours of poetry for them next Thursday, which ought to be fun, I’ll post the details up here as soon as I have them. I’m also going on The Hamilton’s show the week after next. I did this once before, in 2006. I wonder what they’ll think of Dudley Livingstone? Or Lucien Gore for that matter? Christine Hamilton is, IMHO, one of the most underrated stand-ups in Britain, she sure knows how to own a stage.
I went to a little lunch thrown by the Business School of Edinburgh University yesterday. The theme was ‘Comedy Should Be Taken Seriously.’ I met some interesting Swedish comics and William Burdett-Coutts, he of Assembly Rooms fame. It was essentially a little informal think-tank led by a very nice professor called Irvine Lapsley to see how comedy can help with the well-being of a city. The food was good.
In fact good food was the theme yesterday as I was taken out for dinner also. My producer up here Beth O’Brien has been coming to watch my shows for years, long before we worked together. Her parents have always been very good about making sure I get a good square meal in me afterwards and last night was no different. Beth’s dad bought me steak. He is a GOOD BLOKE!
The show was good yesterday. But my highlight was filling in for Brigitte Aphrodite at Cabaret Voltaire. We love Brigitte Aphrodite, she’s dead cool and John and I were chuffed to get guestlist tickets. Then her guitarist’s amp was playing up and as they tried to fix it Bri reeled off a few poems. She was starting to run out of material just as John and I were heading out the door to do our Aisle16 gig. I waved at Bri to say bye, thanks for the tickets, and she said “Luke come and do a poem.” I won’t lie to you, I live my life for moments like that, but when they come to me I get all shy. I did manage to do one though, a rattling Jean-Claude Gendarme which seemed to go alright with the hip crowd of thin youngsters.
It didn’t manage to win me the cool vote, which went to John. It’s very close now, Tim leads 3 to John and mine’s 2.5. I’m not doing Aisle16 R Kool tonight. Ross Sutherland cameos. I hope he wins the vote. Can’t have those losers streaking ahead. Right, breakfast calls.