Part 1 of My Life on the Fringe by Evergreen contributor, Owen O’Neill. Owen is an award-winning stand-up comedian, writer and actor.
LOOKA WHAT YOU WON
My first proper Fringe experience was in 1986. I’ll never forget the pungent beery smell of malt
and yeast and mash as I walked out of Waverley train station, and that scent has assailed my
nostrils every year since. Always something brewing in this Edinburgh cauldron. Thirty-five years
ago the Edinburgh Fringe was only just giving birth to the corporate whore of a monster that it is
today and that of course was inevitable. The simple economics of supply and demand and greed
saw to that.
The Fringe child has grown up amidst some of the worst playwrights, comedians,
musicians and actors on the planet, and some of the most brilliant. It saw the progression of the
bastard money-grabbing landlords, venues that took more and more and gave less and less. TV
companies and comedy agents also got in on the act. Where there’s muck there’s brass necks.
In 1986 I saw Christy Moore at the Playhouse for £5.00 and Rory Gallagher at the Queens Hall for
£6.50. I stayed in a B&B in Ravelston Terrace for £6.00 a night She did me a deal, £100 for the
month. Today, decent accommodation costs around £2,500 a month that’s a jump of 2400%
percent. Inflation has risen in that time by 3.3% per year, so I’m not some old fart going on about
how cheap everything was in the old days.
I thought I was ‘booked’ to do 15 performances. Turned out I wasn’t ‘booked’ to do
anything. Earlier that year I had met Cliff Parisi and Andy Linden on the London Cabaret Circuit as it
was then known. They were a double-act who went under the name of The Port Stanley Amateur
Dramatic Society. Cliff has since gone on to star in East Enders and is currently in Call the Midwife,
and Andy pops up in sit-coms, starred as Mundungus in Harry Potter and does a lot of radio
drama. Their act consisted of them coming on stage dressed as Argentinian soldiers holding
pieces of rock covered in sheep shit and abusing the audience for forty-five minutes. ‘Hey English
looka what you won, a rock weeth a peece of a sheep sheet on it.’
It was outrageous at the time and I remember it went down much better with a Scottish
audience than it did in London. They asked me did I want to perform with them at the Pleasance in
Edinburgh and I said yes. Not having any clue what it entailed.
THE PLEASANCE
Christopher Richardson, a very posh English gentleman, ran the Pleasance at the time.
Christopher always wore a white linen suit a blue cravat and a big Panama hat. He had a walking
cane and seemed to know everyone. He would stroll around the courtyard saying things like,
‘Good morning Owen have you tried the croissants in the bakery on the corner? They’re
absolutely top drawer’. He seemed old to me then but was probably only in his late-forties. In
those days the Pleasance had two spaces, the Main theatre and the Little theatre. You could read
what was playing on the notice board in two minutes. In 2019 they had fifteen performing areas
and you actually needed a large map to know where the hell you were. In 1986 the venue had only
been in existence as a Fringe venue for a year and it was then they decided to try out the bar as a
third venue. This became the Cabaret bar and was where Cliff and Andy did their show entitled The
Malvinas Variety Club.
The Malvinas Variety Club wasn’t even listed; there was no posters for it and it grew by word
of mouth. It started at 11.30pm and was a disorganised chaotic shambles and I being naive and a
complete novice had no idea it was any such thing. I thought it was fantastic. Anyone could drop
by, do a spot and publicise their show, complete unknowns like Rory Bremner, Mark Steel,
Jenny Eclair, Paul Merton, or ‘Martin’ as he was known then. There was no running order. Cliff
and Andy MC’d the show but had no idea who was coming on next and would introduce the acts
by saying ‘And now here’s another person’. My act consisted of five poems and three long
rambling stories. By the end of the run I had abandoned the whole act and had written a new
twenty-five minutes of stand-up comedy, although at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was. It
had evolved through sheer desperation and the influence of other acts that I had seen at the Fringe.
Performers like Ivor Cutler, John Hegley, Roy Hutchins, Bruce Morton and one group called the
Nice People who had a show called the Wobbly Spanky Botty Show which made me literally howl
and weep with laughter. In contrast to that, I saw an amazing play by Tom MacIntyre based
on Patrick Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger which MacIntyre referred to as The Theatre of the Image.
And Ben Keaton’s The Intimate Memoirs of an Irish Taxidermist which went on to win the Perrier
Award. There was no other place on the planet where I could have experienced such an eclectic
array of culture.
There was a piano on stage at the Malvinas Variety Club and someone thought it would be a
good idea to invite a member of the audience up to play it and have a singalong. I had long red hair
at the time and was quite fresh faced. I looked a lot younger than my 29 years. After I had finished
my act I asked if there was anyone who wanted to play the piano and a very large Canadian man
approached the stage. I could see straight away he was fucking mental. He grabbed me by the
scruff of the neck and said, ‘I’m going to play our song bitch’. I tried my best to get away from him
but he must have been six foot three and seventeen stone. I’m five-ten and weighed about ten
stone then. His hand was almost all the way around my scrawny chicken neck. The whites of his
eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were like two black saucers, ‘Remember this bitch?’ And with
his other hand he began to play and sing a song called The Band Played On. He had a great
booming baritone voice, no need for a microphone but during the song he would whisper threats
to me under his breath. The song went like this.
Ca-sey would waltz with the straw-berry blonde and the band played on. (fuckin bitch)
He’d glide cross the floor with the girl he a-dored and the band played on. (cunt!)
But his brain was so loa-ded he almost ex-ploded, the poor girl would shake in alarm. (I
shoudda fuckin killed you when I had the chance)
He’d ner leave the girl with the straw-berry curls and the band played on.
He sang two more verses, I was almost losing consciousness. The audience thought he was a
plant and it was all part of the show. He eventually let me go and stormed out, I fell to my knees
gasping for air to the sound of a drunken standing ovation. It was 2am in the morning and I can
only assume he thought I was his ex-wife or girlfriend.
GREYFIARS KIRKHOUSE
The next time I darkened the door of the Fringe was in 1990 with a show called Stand up and
Hide at the Greyfriars Kirkhouse in Candlemaker Row. In an old programme I found online the
show stated I would be talking about midgets, giants and five-in-a-bed, I have no recollection now
of any of those routines. It was the year I was introduced to my now very good friends Sean
Bradley, Janet Dick and their three children Laura, Hannah and Bridget. Sam Bradley was then only
a glint in Sean and Janet’s eyes. He still is. I stayed with them in their house in the Grassmarket
where I was fed and watered and looked after like one of the family. And they only charged me
four hundred pound a week.! Actually, I don’t think they charged me anything, but I shouldn’t say
that as Sean will be invoicing me.
Eddie Izzard had taken up residence in the Greyfriars Kirkhouse that year and he had sub-let
me a forty-seater space. I have no idea what the deal was, but I’m sure it was very reasonable and
way below what the Assembly, Gilded Balloon or Pleasance were charging. It was the first time I’d
done a 60-minute show and on my opening night I was so nervous I did the whole show in 35
minutes. I had a reviewer in that night and she pulled no punches: O’Neill gabbled his way through.
He has short-changed his audience and is obviously not ready to do a full hour, he thinks he’s still on
the club circuit. The next night I ran over by 10 minutes and got a bollocking by the performers who
followed me, a lesbian double act from Barnsley. By the third show I had it down to 59 minutes. You
have to learn quickly at the Fringe. Eddie told me I should have a massive poster on the wall of the
venue and at great expense, £8.50, I had my poster blown up to 4ft x 3ft and covered with Perspex. I
thought it looked too big. I noticed that Eddie hadn’t any posters on the wall. ‘I’m working on it’, he
told me. The next day Eddie had strung a massive yellow banner across the street of Candlemaker
Row. EDDIE IZZARD. TONIGHT 8PM. It made my poster look minuscule.
My good friend the late Sean Hughes won the Perrier Award that year with his show A One
Night Stand with Sean Hughes. Four weeks previously he had rang to ask would I come and watch a
preview that he was doing at the Bearcat Club in Twickenham. I have to say I was a little surprised
as Sean had never asked me to come to see any of his shows before. He was a cocky, confident,
twenty-four-year-old with a strong sense of what he wanted to do. I thought his show was
terrific and fresh and very funny and I knew that if it could work in a comedy club atmosphere it
would go down even better in a more theatrical space – and I told him he would probably win the
Perrier. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘This show is too off-the-wall for those wankers on the Perrier Panel.’
It soon became clear the only reason Sean had asked me to come to watch his preview was
because he knew I lived in Twickenham and could put him up for the night. We became firm
friends and the next year in Edinburgh, 1991, we wrote a play called Patrick’s Day. Patrick’s Day
was about two naive ne’er-do-wells called Patrick who come to London and are conned into
running a pub which is really a money laundering scam for the Kilburn Irish mafia. In the end they
steal the takings from the criminals, emigrate to New York City and end up running a pub for the
Irish mafia in Hells Kitchen. The moral of the play was eegits never learn. Patrick’s Day was on
every night at 7.30 at the Gilded Balloon Upstairs theatre off the Cowgate.
THE GILDED BALLLOON
The room had a bar which we incorporated into the play. I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun or
drank so much alcohol in all my life as I did that year. There was one scene near the end of the play
where Sean asks me, ‘Did you get the shopping?’ And I say, ‘Oh yes’ and pull a pack of eight beers
from under the table, open two and we start drinking. One night I was so hungover and needed a
drink so badly I pulled them out in the first scene and we had to ad lib quite a lot of the play from
there on in and I was really very drunk by the last scene.
Sean could have played a much bigger venue than the Gilded Balloon Upstairs on the
strength of his Perrier win. He could have sold-out any space in Edinburgh, but he said ‘No, that’s
what they expect me to do but fuck them I’m doing what I want to do’. The play got off to a rocky
start. To say we were under-rehearsed is an understatement. It was billed under Theatre. A critic
called Hayden Murphy came on the second night and he hated it. Hated us, hated the venue and
the seats. Hated the set. He said, To call this amateur shambles ‘theatre’ is sacrilegious. It’s devoid
of any kind of meaning or structure. The two ‘actors’ on stage nudge themselves like icebergs from
one awful line to the next. O’Neill and Hughes are nothing more than despicable con artists. Sean
thought this was fantastic. It was as if he wanted to lower himself down from all the adulation he
had received the year before, adulation never sat well with him. It made him feel uncomfortable. I
on the other hand, had never ever experienced any kind of adulation and I was hoping that by
performing alongside the flavour of the year, maybe just a little bit would rub off on me. So to say I
was pissed off is putting it mildly.
It was, however, the kick-up-the-ass we needed. We re-blocked it, cut out some chaff and by
the end of the week we were running a very tight ship. Sixty-nine minutes of well-timed comic farce,
not an iceberg in site. Sean decided to get the review blown up and put outside the venue.
O’NEILL AND HUGHES ARE DESPICABLE CON ARTISTS – HAYDEN MURPHY, THE SCOTSMAN.
AMATEUR SHAMBLES – HAYDEN MURPHY, THE SCOTSMAN.
FLOWS LIKE AN ICEBERG – HAYDEN MURPHY, THE SCOTSMAN.
It was the first time anyone had used negative reviews to plug their show. Karen Koren (the
director of the Gilded Balloon) was furious but it was a stroke of genius by Sean, we sold out for the
rest of the run and could have sold out ten times over. We also used the Scotsman quotes in the
play.
ME. This pub is a fucking amateur shambles!
SEAN Yes! I know! We don’t know what we’re doing. I think we’re just despicable con artists.
These line lines got big laughs every night followed by wild applause. Happy days. Thank you, Hayden Murphy.
