The Dullest Blog: Comedy ramblings to inspire the most tedious moment of your week

Underdogs

When The Skinny asked me to write about underdogs, it struck me that the term is a particularly British concept.  Look the word up in Italian, French or German - all literally translate as “loser”.  The Spanish don't even have one single word to define “underdog”, settling for the phrase “el que tiene meños posibilidades” [the holder of the fewest possibilities]. 

We in Scotland like to think of ourselves as being on the side of the underdog. Indeed, we often cast ourselves in that role. We claim our sports teams perform better when they are underdogs.   In other words, if people expect us to be really fucking useless and we end up being just a bit fucking useless, that's a result. 

The first time I ever did a gig for The Stand, in 1997, a woman came up to me after the show and said “I really enjoyed your act, but when you came onstage I though you were going to be shit.”  Eleven years later, I married her, which must rank as a fairly unique form of heckle put-down. 

A couple of weeks back, I was on the judging panel for the final of Scottish Comedian of the Year, and was surprised and pleased by the fact it was this year was won by a genuine underdog in John Gavin.  Not only did John himself regard himself as an outsider, he only qualified for the final through the circuitous route of winning a gong show.   

He was up against very stiff competition too.  Out of the ten finalists, at least seven came within a hair's breadth of winning.  It was not easy picking out a winner.  Indeed, one of my fellow judges (who shall remain nameless) found it particularly taxing.  Having perhaps somewhat overindulged on the hospitality on offer, he wanted to give the award to Des Clarke. It had to be pointed out to him that Des was the compere, which also explained why he'd been on stage more often than everybody else. 

I notice a new bar named Underdogs has opened on Hanover St in Edinburgh. When I looked in the other night, there didn't appear to many underdogs drinking there. Maybe they'd been refused entry.