In my stand-up comedy days I was in the Scottish Comedian of the Year Final four times, finishing runner-up twice (in 2008 and 2009). I saw it as keeping up my indie cred by steadfastly refusing to ever actually win it. Kindly, the judges were always happy to go along with my strategy without me ever even having to ask them.
Those gigs meant playing to the biggest audiences of my career. I had the pleasure of appearing three times at The Old Fruitmarket… and the misfortune of appearing once at the O2. But more of that later.
This Friday night sees the SCOTY Final take place at The Barrowlands – but there’s a twist. Entry is free so long as you bring a donations of a kids’ Christmas toy (must be unused and in original packaging) or a food bank parcel.
The event’s promoter and founder, Alan Anderson, explains why. “Over the past year, many Scottish comedians have closely followed fellow comedian Dave Johns’s ramblings about filming the Ken Loach movie, I, Daniel Blake. He’s won awards and the film has made us think. SCOTY started in 2006, this year is its 10th birthday. In those years the Scottish Comedy community has grown and improved massively, so it felt right to do something inspired by Davey’s film. Also, the event is taking place on Black Friday and we wanted to give something to those disadvantaged rather than celebrate American commercialisation and greed.”
It’s a great touch and means that the smiles generated by the night can spread further than just the gig itself. It shows a real warmth. Something that wasn’t in evidence at the O2, as I alluded to earlier.
I’ll let Alan pick up the story. “The 2010 Final had outside temperature of -10c. Inside, the heating had been on all day but with 30 minutes until opening the beer delivery hadn’t been able to get in due to thick layers of ice on the ground. When it did arrive all the venue’s fire doors were flung open and 20 staff worked like mad to get the beer inside. Sadly, all the heat rushed outside and the room was like a freezer again. Trying to make 1000 people laugh whilst they wear big, thick coats, sitting in Arctic conditions is a monumental task, but (most of) the comics pulled it off.”
My own contribution to finding a way to pull it off was to suggest that Anderson’s negotiations over the venue had eventually come down to an enquiry about how much he could hire it for if they didn’t bother turning the heating on. It was amazing that enough circulation was still reaching my brain to allow me to ad-lib, given that it was one of the few gigs in which I didn’t observe a ritual of rolling my sleeves up… because my hands were already turning blue and I was worried I wouldn’t have been able to hold the mic.
Still, the Arctic conditions weren’t the most memorable part of the evening for me. Myself and fellow finalist, Ray Bradshaw, shared a taxi to the venue. The driver asked where we were off to and we couldn’t be bothered making something up so told him we were off to take part in a comedy final. He then asked if we felt confident.
I said ‘not really’. Cue a motivational, Fergie-style ‘hairdryer’ lecture from the driver, who turned out to be ex-Clyde and Partick Thistle player, Pat Keogh.
Pat, if you’re reading this, you were probably dead right about mental preparation. But my excuse would still be that the pitch wasn’t playable.
Who knows if any of this year’s batch of potential winners will have the benefit of a former professional footballer giving them a pep-talk (or bollocking) on the way to the gig? Anderson reckons they may not need it though. “Most years there are only 3 or 4 likely winners, but this year has the highest overall calibre since 2009.”
Whoever wins it, producing a storming set at The Barrowlands will be quite a memory for them. It’s another iconic Glasgow venue for the Final, but Anderson’s ambitions for the contest extend to an even grander location.
“The Hydro. If the ICW [Insane Championship Wrestling] boys can do it then SCOTY can do it.”
The 2016 Scottish Comedian of the Year Final takes place at The Barrowland Ballroom this Friday (Nov 25th) at 7:30pm.
Full details and information about reserving tickets can be found here.
Teddy Craig was a stand-up comedian for 16 years, before retiring when he did his comedy cruciate (i.e. was skint & scunnered). He now works in Social Media & Content for award-winning Edinburgh marketing agency, The Lane. You can follow him on Twitter @RossTeddyCraig where he posts hipster football blogs about Antonin Panenka, loosely disguised as marketing insights.