list.co.uk/festival The Great Pretenders | FESTIVAL COMEDY

PRETENDERS

playing Brains in a Studio Canal i lm version of his life, might actually be true. ‘Yeah, I still kid around. I like a good punchline, and sometimes it’s funnier if I lie. But weirdly, in my show the truth is dei nitely the bits that you think are lies.’ His Fringe debut is a condensed and uncensored version of his book, California Schemin’, full of stories of celebrity encounters, drug overdoses, a suicide attempt and a stomach ulcer.

‘I didn’t like the comedown when it was all over. It was like going back to reality after an amazing holiday. I’m trying to be myself now, but I bring Brains along, because that usually means I’ll have a fucking great time.’

Someone like Neil Hamburger, who’s been gracing stages for almost 20 years now as a gin-pickled, snarling stand-up in a crumpled tuxedo and a squint bowtie, would probably puke at all this sappy self-rel ective talk. ‘I just i ll a wheelbarrow of salty, obscene jokes, and dump it all over into people’s faces,’ he explains. ‘It’s a community project let them laugh their fool heads off as I launder unhappiness out of my smutty jokes.’

Trying to get him to break character, to discuss First Dismay for example, the album he recently put out on Drag City, the Chicago record label which released tapes of Andy Kaufman’s last year, or, Entertainment, a movie he’s been i lming this month with Michael Cera and John C Reilly, is off-limits. He creates a diversion with a joke, and the subject is changed.

He makes the odd brief sincerity-slip by mistake whilst telling a tall tale about helping his friend Tim Heidecker (of Tim and Eric fame) dig corpses up from his backyard last week. ‘Those guys are the cream of the cream. The number one in the world, and I’m their number one fan.’ Noticing he’s momentarily dropped the act, he quickly recovers. ‘I hate those bastards they’re taking work away from me.’ ‘The trick is to no longer believe you’re pretending,’ concludes Hamburger, an unlikely sage, complete with nicotine stains and greasy comb-over. ‘That’s when you get the people who come along to your show and sip their glass of milk, or their carrot juice, and leave seething with anger. That’s when it’s working. When you’re being sued, and people are crying.’

Brains Mcloud: 15 Reasons Why Justin Bieber is Gay, Heroes @ Bob and Miss Behave’s Bookshop, 226 0000, 21–25 Aug, 11pm, £5

Miranda Sings, Venue 150 @ EICC, 0844 847 1639, 13–17 Aug, 6.30pm, £20

Neil Hamburger, Underbelly, Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 13–24 Aug, 8.50pm, £10 (£9).

7–14 Aug 2014 THE LIST FESTIVAL 39

d ‘I’d feel terrible if ‘I’d feel terrible if people thought I was this cocky and rude in real life!’