HeraldScotland speaks to Gordon Southern about Lycra, colonic irrigation and being called Gordon.
Tell us about your Fringe show
It's called "Your New Favourite Comedian" and it's loosely a tribute to a Swedish rock band but it's also a love story, tales of misadventure in the world of food and beverage, and at the heart of it an hour of jokes.
Best thing about the Fringe?
Edinburgh. A stunning backdrop to all the festivities, a great city with another vibrant, artistic one plonked on top of it for a month.
Worst thing about the Fringe?
Edinburgh. Sky high rents in hovels and half a million artistic wallies clogging the place up.
How many years have you been coming to the Fringe?
I first came in 1991 with some awful student play put on in a Masonic Lodge on Broughton Street… Things have gradually improved since. Mainly because I joined the Masons that year.
Favourite Fringe venue?
My spiritual home the Gilded Balloon of course. Karen Koren and the gang feel like my adopted family.
Best Fringe memory?
Probably Dave Lamb (of "Come Dine With Me" fame) and I deciding to enter "So you think you're funny" in 1991. Our first ever gig was the heat, the 2nd was the final. It went really well in the heat.
Best heckle?
By me or at me? I'm ashamed to say as a child I heckled the lovely Caroline Aherne and managed to stop her in her tracks. I though I was helping. Let that serve as a warning, you 'helpful' drunks!
Craziest on stage experience?
At Adelaide Fringe this year I witnessed a man voluntarily receive a colonic irrigation. Something of an eye opener.
What's on your rider?
Two pints of water, a ginger beer. Most venues are a bit warm so you need a bit of hydration.
How do you wind down after a show?
In Edinburgh? Beer and vegetarian haggis.
What do you love about Scotland?
I like a good hill. You have some. My wife will probably charge up them in Lycra. I will admire them from afar.
What do you like about Edinburgh?
There's a big hill. And a bigger one.
What's the most Scottish thing you've done?
Have a mum and a dad who are Scottish. You don't get a name like Gordon without good reason
What kind of jokes do a Scottish crowd seem to respond to?
I wouldn't know. I play the Edinburgh Fringe. There is never an exclusively Scottish crowd!
Favourite joke?
The one about the door-to-door salesman, the young boy in the fedora hat with the brandy and the cigar. Or that one about bees. Or the Christmas tortoise. If you don't know any of them ask me.
Gordon Southern's new stand up show 'Your New Favourtie Comedian' will be at the Gilded Balloon from 30th July - 25th August for tickets go to www.edfringe.com
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