STAND-UP GARY MEIKLE Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, Sat 13 Jul; Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Fri 2 Aug
After five years of stand-up, Gary Meikle turned professional last summer and attracted strong reviews for his Edinburgh Fringe debut. Yet the Glaswegian wasn’t happy with the level of exposure it brought him. Nine days later, he posted his now infamous rant about his daughter’s eyebrows on Facebook, which went viral, changing his life overnight. Since then, he’s attracted more than 125 million views for his videos on the social media platform, rejected appearing on Britain’s Got Talent and Judge Rinder, and become an international act, with tours of Europe, North America and Australia booked for the next 12 months. ‘Social media is changing everything,’ he acknowledges. ‘I
genuinely think it’s a big part of my success so far because I am so interactive with my audience and really give them an insight into my life.’ Mixing his introductory hour about being a 41-year-old grandfather and sharing his home with daughter Ainslie and granddaughter Gracie, alongside new material, The iBrow Guy attributes his relative ease with his burgeoning fame to a tough upbringing in the care system. Nevertheless, after recently signing his first boob, he admits to being surprised by the deluge of eyebrow photos sent to him by female fans. ‘I’m bombarded with emails from women all over the world,’
he marvels. ‘And it’s just pictures of their forehead most of the time, from the nose up, leaving out the rest of their face, asking “Gary, do you like my eyebrows?”’ Some go further though. At gigs, ‘a lot of women are cupping my arse,’ he admits. ‘I’ve had two women try to cup my balls. Another tried to put her hand up my top three times! It’s a shame because I love doing the meet’n’greets afterwards. They’ve given me their money and got babysitters, the least I can do is hang around for a picture. There’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed though. But quite often, it is!’ (Jay Richardson)
COMEDY | PREVIEWS
LOCAL LAUGHS LIAM FARRELLY ANOTHER UP-AND-COMER HAS A GO AT OUR Q&A
Do you have any pre-show rituals you can tell us about? I’m not superstitious, so not really. But what I usually do before I go on is watch the compere talk to the audience, as it helps to get an idea of the type of people in the crowd and what stuff they laugh at.
How do you handle hecklers? If they’re properly steaming and you engage too much with them the whole thing just sounds like an argument up the back of a night bus, so it’s good to hit them with one put-down and not give them a chance to respond. Where do you draw the line when it comes to ‘offensive comedy’? I don’t think there should be a line; I believe that every comedian has the right to say whatever they want when they’re on stage. But equally the audience have the right not to laugh at something they find offensive.
What’s the one thing you remember about your very first remember about your very first stand-up gig? One of the main things I remember about my first gig was remember about my first gig was that I had to leave it early. I was that I had to leave it early. I was still in high school at the time and still in high school at the time and the gig was on a Tuesday. My the gig was on a Tuesday. My mum would have been raging mum would have been raging if I’d come home after midnight if I’d come home after midnight on a school night so I never on a school night so I never got to see the headliners. As I got to see the headliners. As I was leaving a guy asked me if was leaving a guy asked me if I had work in the morning and I had work in the morning and I had to say ‘no mate, I’ve got I had to say ‘no mate, I’ve got National 4 Lifeskills Maths in National 4 Lifeskills Maths in the morning’. It was pretty surreal going back to class where I was being taught the where I was being taught the names of 3D shapes when I names of 3D shapes when I had been performing for over had been performing for over a hundred people the night before. ■ Liam Farrelly is part of the bill at The Stand, Glasgow, Thu 4–Sat 6 Jul. See much more of this q&a at list. co.uk/comedy
86 THE LIST 1 Jun–31 Aug 2019