The Case for Scottish Comedy

I went to your first live Billy Connolly stand up comedy show earlier this week.

First off, let me preface this by saying I have a kind of fear of live comedy. I have seen the odd stand up comic whose sense of humour and timing have left me cold, and those few instances of intense discomfort, as the comic stands expectantly, awaiting a torrent of laughter that I cannot honestly deliver.

Luckily, this was not the case at the Billy Connolly performance. Even when using material I have heard several times before, Connolly's enthusiasm and energy and his ease up on stage made the performance both amusing and, even during the slower or more predictable points, he was never boring.

I noted a Scot or two in the crowd, wearing their kilts in a display of Scottish pride that the man on stage did not feel the need to show himself. There were other people who were offered better seats and so, for the first hour of the performance, there was an irritating trickle of people down the stairs in front of me towards their better view - a really poor system on the part of the organisers, I thought. However, the saddest night of the evening was a lost elderly gentleman, who had obviously gone to find a drink or head off to the toilet, and wandered back to his section... and could not find his seat. He hung around the stairwell and (mildly infuriatingly) directly in line between some spectators and the stage, and finally sat down on the floor in resignation, his companions either unable or unwilling to assist him back to his seat. Bless.

Luckily, Connolly kept the night humming, the crowd buzzing and laughing. There were die hard Billy fans in the audience, who must have heard before even more of his anecdotes than I had, but they were not disappointed. And neither was I.

Would I go again? Perhaps not every year. But if I need a good live laugh, I now know where I can find them.

Verdict: Billy Connolly's show was a whole heap of fun. There were highlights and lowlights, but overal, definitely worth the ticket price. 7 Scottish Clansmen out of 10.