Comedian's Rant - Will Andrews

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Feature by Will Andrews | 15 Jul 2006
I went to see my friend Duncan Rennie play Jesus in Kelvingrove Park on Sunday. He was great, powerful, really Jesusy. He has all the prerequisite physical attributes: tall, long hair, beard, blue eyes (sic.) It's an odd feeling though to see your friend hung on a cross, a man that once leapt at you across a dance floor with urine stained trousers and bleeding fists.

Also, it must sting the Christians to have to look outside 'the team' to find someone with the right bodily requirements for the role of Son of God. The Bible-Orientated tend not to have long hair and a beard. That 'look' is more the domain of those with a chequered sexual past.

I wouldn't have gone if Duncan wasn't in it. I'm glad I did, not just for the wide-eyed smiles on the faces of a passing group of Sikhs, or J.C.'s killer line "If you ask him for an egg would he give you a scorpion?", or, on a personal note, the fact that plays in the open say "bless you" to smokers. All in all it was one of the finer and safer ways to spend dusk in Glasgow's first public park. Nothing puts off rapists like a large group of Christians.

Hush up now y'hear? Don' you be chittering an' a tap tap tapping 'bout no faithful in yo' dark little under stair room. Yes ma'm, putting the word 'rapist' in close context with 'Christians' is risky, but I'll admit to getting a little excited when it comes to baiting the God-loving. It's not personal. I myself have a strong desire to evangelise along the lines of 'no, of course you didn't see a ghost'.

Actually I have a strong desire to turn up to a meeting of any religious assembly with a sharpened street sign, a crumpled parish newsletter and a bleeding question mark carved into my chest , screaming "fuuuccking whaaaaaat?" at the nearest believer. Keeping quiet is like keeping wasps in your mouth.

The Jesus play wasn't the only bit of open air theatre in Kelvingrove Park this week. You may or may not have been one of the lucky few to witness the controversial work 'Vicious Fight Between Two Lesbians', a groundbreaking and sunglasses-breaking piece by two young physical performers. It opened with the jaw-droppingly succinct line "you fucked her, didn't you?" and developed with eye-watering violence until the supporting cast - two men as football strip-wearing English - interjected with "come on now, it's not worth fighting over." At this point the delighted audience dug in with shouts of "fuck aff ya English pricks." Reinvigorated, the fight continued and the third act ended with what was, I feel, a rather tender headlock centre-stage, and the line "ahm only letting ya up if ye stop being a fanny." Our heroines then left to "sort this shite oot" to a standing ovation from the assembled, one of which was heard to say: "In a lesbian love triangle, someone always gets fisted."

And most religions still hate the gays? They wouldn't if they had seen that. C'mon, throw the old books away. Listen to Jackson's Man In the Mirror, pick a bush and buy yourself a set of night vision goggles. Anything, just stop staring each other out and join the party. Even The Anglican Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, during the recent Gay Bishop Furore, has been quoted as saying "Anglicans are used to fudging things sometimes." He may have lifted those words from graffiti on a woodwork desk but it sounds positive to me. Join the Reverend and I on this dance into the light, and in the meantime remember that often asking the religious about society is like asking Santa before buying a present.


Will Andrews is a mechanical monkey who hits symbols together for brass.