STAND UP
ARNOLD BROWN
The Stand, Glasgow, Fri 24 & Sat 25 May
‘l’m 125 now,’ says Arnold Brown in the wry tones of a man who was born to bullshit, ‘and I still like talking about myself.’ The ex-pat Glaswegian may not be quite that old, but he was walking the comedy circuit back when it was still a comedy bridleway. After moving down to London he performed alongside Alexei Sayle at the Comedy Store’s opening night in 1979 and, despite being gonged off stage by a drunken audience disgusted at his failure to tell any jokes, enjoyed the evening enough to quit his job as an accountant. Since then, the self-styled ‘comedian’s comedian’ has won the Perrier in 1987 for his Brown Blues show, supported Frank Sinatra at lbrox, and appeared in The Young Ones as well as having small roles in a number of films, the latest of which is Peter Mullan’s Young Adam, starring Ewan MacGregor. A recent jaunt took him across to New York (alongside Rhona Cameron, Craig Hill and ‘ten thousand pipers’), and he still tours regularly and has released a range of spin-off products, including last year’s audio tape A Guide For the
Perplexed. ‘l’m often perplexed,’ he says by way of explanation. ‘A lot of comics are very sure of everything, they put it all in black and white. But you can’t do that because everything in life is so confused.’
He may have a varied career to look back on, but it’s hard not to think that Brown must rue a few missed opportunities. Many of his contemporaries at the Comedy Store and the later Comic Strip — the likes of Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Alexei Sayle — have gone on to become household names, something Brown, despite his reputation, has never done. He
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HOWARD READ
The Stand, Edinburgh, Thu 6 & Sun 9 Jun; the Stand, Glasgow, Fri 7 & Sat 8 Jun
An animated Read
62 THE LIST
(James Smart)
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doesn’t sound too bitter, though. ‘I did some TV,’ he explains, ‘but I never expected that my comedy could cross over in that way, so I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t. My comedy isn’t accessible to normal people; the ones who go to my gigs are deranged. No, alright, they’re just discerning, willing to wait for jokes that aren’t just based on TV programmes. A year ago I still thought Scooby 000 was a kind of detergent. I like ideas. I like the idea of being funny. And I like performing live. That’s where the buzz is.‘
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Joking aside
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J NGLE RS favourites Men In Coats are performing as part of Big In Falkirk. Catch the tacit duo in a weekend of street theatre action taking place in Callendar Park on the weekend of 1-3 June. See Theatre listings for more details.
Men In Coats
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