Interview taken from HermAphrodite #5

You may have seen him on tour, at The Fringe, as a panellist on a one-off quiz-show for Channel 4’s Gay Night, or as Robin William’s beardy brother’s boyfriend in ‘Mrs Doubtfire’. You might not. But seeing him in action is highly recommended. Onstage he is really very funny. As Gareth McLean’s review-cum-introduction ought to’ve suggested. All that I really need to add following his ‘prelude’ is that the aforementioned ‘possessed mongoose’ is a real sweetie in conversation.

"My clavicles stick out, which is genetic - my father was ET."

It's one of my friends' birthday today. I thought that going to The Cornerhouse in Middlesbrough would be a nice way of celebrating that. A full day of entertainment ( mainly multiple bands, inc. Goldblade ) has been organised here for Bank Holiday Monday. But the 25th is also the day before most everybody's exams, and if we're going out in the evening for Eleanor’s celebrations then it's only I who shall dare to venture out by myself in the afternoon. The FOOLS! As it turned out, they not only missed the ramblings of a very funny man, but also the chance to sit in the only ( to my fledgling knowledge ) dressing room in the world which features a glitter-ball. And, given that Scott’s entire audience seemed to be seated cross-legged on the floor, the opportunity to suddenly feel yourself to be five years old again and sat at the feet of the birthday party’s entertainer. An entertainer who is, yes, sharing quite a bit more than they usually do...

"I'm thirty-five, which is like EIGHTY in gay years..."

When I accost Scott after for the interview, he needs first to be removed from an adoring circle. As we leave, his sixteen-year old nail varnish wearing ardent-fan ( Robert ), whom he found whilst onstage, has just declared a desire to have Scott's baby. So that answers my questions about comedy groupies then. Phwee.

"How old are you people?

( looks around the audience )

Well you're twelve... what IS this?

There are embryos down here with backpacks, how OLD are you ?"

Because this building is open and serving alcohol pretty much all day, even though Scott is ‘playing’ late afternoon, his audience are still, in places, quite tipsy. Whether or not this makes them more receptive to his humour is debatable. However, I would place it as the reasoning behind Robert’s voicing of his baby-desires...

me - "Do you like sober audiences better'n pissed ones?"

Scott - "Aaah, I prefer them to be a bit drunk."

me - "D'you get stuff thrown at you?"

Scott - ( blithely ) "No. You'd think I would have been beaten to death by now, wouldn't you?"

"The Scots are so sweet and nice - I can't do the accent cos I'm educated - but when I was in Paisley this Scotsman was in the front row yelling out all these euphemisms for gay-men,

terms I'd never heard. Sausage-jockey, uphill gardener, shirt-lifter...

My favourite is sewage-canoeist. It sounds like a country and western band..."

So then. What are Scott’s plans for the year, beyond avoiding being beaten to death...?

Scott - "I'm doing the Fringe this year, I'm doing a play that I've written, about murder and date rape. It's performed with hand-puppets, and music."

me - "Uh..."

Scott - "And it's called 'Brain Soufflé', it's set in a piano bar, that's why there's music. And it's kind of about this guy who becomes obsessed with another guy, and ends up taking their relationship a bit too far."

me - "Through the medium of hand-puppetry?"

Scott ( happily ) - "Yes."

me - "Why?"

Scott - "Because I have to portray other characters onstage, it's one person show. And I didn't know how I was going to do it - I thought about handing out the script to the audience and involving them n the show but then I thought that that's just WAY too risky. So then I thought 'well I'll just do hand-puppets, they can play all the characters'. And then the play kind of changed, and I realised that I had to rape a hand-puppet, and I thought that would be fun."

Yes, he did just say that.

Scott - "I thought raping a hand-puppet would be funny."

Oooh, dear. Methinks this could offend people.

Though obviously, it's better to use inanimate objects when depicting an onstage rape than actual people.

And all of this isn’t rooted in a 'thing' for muppets.

Scott - "No, I don't like children's programming, I think it's patronising generally. But I really liked it as a kid, though I thought it was scary. Children's programming scared me."

So his hand-puppets aren't scary. They're, um, kitchenware, essentially.

Scott - "He has oven-mitts on him, for some strange reason, and just uses them to his best advantage."

me - "Do they look like what they should do?"

Scott - "They're oven mitts. So that's what they look like."

me - "Have you given them names?"

Scott - "Yes."

me - "But you haven't got a huge array of them ?"

Scott - "I've got two. And I just keep bringing them up, sticking a cocktail stick with an olive on it for eyes for one..."

me - "Were you ever a Punch and Judy fan?"

Scott - "I've seen that in Covent Garden and I really don't like it. I think it's really violent, and I don't think it's funny."

me - "But hand-puppets raping each other..."

Scott - "It's hilARIOUS. (he's grinning. but he does mean it. kinda) It's done with a certain amount of irony and bitterness, which Punch and Judy is if you're an adult, but if you're a kid watching it it's just like people beating each other up. The play isn't for children, it's for adults."

Absolutely. I would say that of his live-act as well.

It's not just that you probably wouldn't understand all of the references, but... no adult is going to want to explain 'rimming' to a small child. We didn't get on to felching though. Praise the lud.

Scott - "I don't think you should ever bring kids to a comedy club. A sixteen year old that's hip, maybe. But a twelve year old - what are you doing ?"

It happened to him in Paisley. Small children and old ladies. Both of whom are quite likely to wish they hadn't gone. And whom affect the audience around them, simply by being there.

Scott - "I don't like old people. Or children."

me - "But you don't set out to be X-rated just to get to them, deliberately offensive..."

Scott - "No. I mean, I know I do do that, but I don't set out to."

( happy surprise ) "He just blew me a kiss. ( Pause ) I'm going to make him bleed."

Whilst he does have a set core of material, it alters as to the audience exposed to it, and their reactions, their comments; they are shaping what they're hearing...

me - "Do you play with the audience differently - if they were more thirtysomethings they'd get a different show...?"

Scott - "I play with them less now than I used to. I wouldn't have played with them AS MUCH tonight, but that guy wouldn't shut up. And they want to be talked to. And the venue [ Middlesbrough Cornerhouse ] lends itself to that. Clubbing in London I only have twenty, twenty-five minutes, I really don't talk to the audience at all. I try not to BARREL through it - that's why I do try to talk to the audience, it slows me down, keeps me from rushing through my material. So I think talking to the audience is a necessity for me."

Though he can't do so everywhere. Not all American clubs appreciate differences in the act between nights. Potentially dangerous spontaneity. Etc.

Scott - "I was discouraged from doing it when I first started [ stand-up ]. But I was an actor for a long time, and I'd been in a play where in some of it we had to deal with the audience and so I learned to do it that way. And when I started doing stand-up comedy it just seemed natural..."

Last revised: 26/07/01