f'sriril
front of house
Great eggspectations
Comedy and drink have always enjoyed a fruitful relationship but few comedians are as inextricably bound up with the stuff as DANNY BROWN. Words: Jonathan Trew
Most of us are partial to the odd bucket of booze or two but, jlllllOf doctors and Journalists aside, few of us are fortunate enough to incorporate binge drinking into our careers One bloke who is blessed With this boon is Danny Brown, star of Ban/axed at Calder’s Gilded Balloon
Brown's show is based around a simple but effeitive ploy. Every time he tells a funny Joke, he gets to have a sip of his lager. Every time he tells a poor ,ioke, he has to take a slug from a pint of advocaat, the thick, glutinous, egg-based liqueur that no-one ever seems to order in bars. By the time he finishes his show, he is quite literally banjaxed.
‘This show is bit like Nicholas Cage's role as the alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. It’s my suicide note.’
Brown is doing this every night until the Fringe ends. Apparently, he hit on this idea after a Scotsman reViewer saw his show last year and commented that Brown would probably be a good guy to go to the booxer V-Jllfl, Brown took this to heart and decnded that if he couldn't go to the boozer during his show
then the booze would come to his show. While applauding Brown's dedication, we were a
Danny Brown and an egg: soon to become one and
the same
little concerned for his health. Not so much because of the posSible damage that the alcohol might be domg to his liver but because of what the eggs in the advocaat might be doing to his digestive system. Anyone who has watched Paul Newman swallowmg fifty hard-bOiled eggs as Cool Hand Luke and Witnessed the torments he suffered afterwards Will appreCiate the danger that Brown is placmg himself In.
'lt’s a two-stage process,' Brown explains ’For the first few days of the show, the eggs mean that trips to the t0ilet are few and far between but by the second stage ' At this point the phone line went a bit crackly but the upshot seemed to be that only the most sturdy of ceramic ware was of any use to Mr Brown.
Luckily for him, at the age of 28, Brown still doesn't suffer from hangovers although he’s a little worried after a medical student told him that not waking up With a mouth like a badger's arse was a bad sign rather than something to be chuffed about. 'l’m stopping drinking after the Fringe,’ he promises, just as thousands have before him. 'This show is bit like Nicholas Cage's role as the alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas It's my SUiCide note.’
On a more cheery and infinitely less dignified note, once you start drinking advocaat it’s very difficult to stop. 'The further down the bottle you get, the more gloopy it becomes,’ grins Brown Which reminds us of a Joke about a spitoon but this column is probably not the place for it.
Danny Brown - Banjaxed (Fringe) Calder's Gilded Balloon at Honeycomb (Venue 139) 226 2151, until 31 Aug, 8.45pm, £8 (£7).
Gossip
Drugs
One of The List’s street sellers was a little bemused when a grungey-looking American youth approached and asked if he could sell him something a little harder. Further enquiries revealed that the goatee- wearer wasn't looking for jazz mags but was on the sniff for heroin. Presumably enticed over the Atlantic by the likes of Irvine Welsh's skag and schemies novel Trainspotting, our American friend thought that the streets of Edinburgh were paved with smack. Unfortunately for the would-be soporific youth, he had asked advice from one of our Glaswgow-based street sellers who was at a
loss to name a single run-down, horse-infested housing scheme in Edinburgh.
Stabbing
Over to the Palladium where mad magician/ scientist Rudy Coby has been merrily blowing things up for the last few days. Part of his act involves him seeming to stab a stooge in the head with a screwdriver. It's hilarious if you’re there. No, really. Anyway, there was a young fan sitting enraptured in the front row who kept on shouting out questions along the lines of ’How do you do that, mister?’ Coby continued valiantly until eventually the young lad’s shouts were too urgent and loud to be ignored. He halted his act and peered down from the stage onto the boy and
Rudy Coby: learning not to work with children the hard way
asked, 'So what age are you kid, five?’
’Seven. I’m seven,’ bawled the kid indignantly, at which point Coby turned to the side of the stage and in a mock whisper hissed, 'Bring me the screwdriver.’
Needless to say, the kid’s bottle deserted him and he burst into floods of tears leaving poor Coby looking something of a cad.
Trout
Merry Prankster, author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and acid advocate Ken Kesey was spotted wandering the Grassmarket the morning after his Flux show. Despite reports of his eccentric nature (apparently he is on a mission to find the Arthurian wizard Merlin) he appeared
Continued on page 28
20-27 Aug 1998 THE usr 27