Come Flyer With Me: Steve Gribbin

Blog by Steve Gribbin | 06 Aug 2011

When you’re out flyering, you are supposed to be relentlessly cheerful, a bit like a cross between a Mormon, a timeshare salesman and an extra from “Glee”, but of course most performers feel like death squared as they hand out the Fringe equivalent of begging letters. After a spectacularly grumpy encounter with an unimpressed Glaswegian on The Royal Mile, in which I first encountered the Scottish insult “scunner”, I wondered whether I should just change my approach to one of outright negativity, in an effort at ‘reverse psychology’ so beloved of parenting advice columns.

How much more liberating it would be for a comedian to put: “An Hour Of Your Life You Will Never Get Back Again” on their posters, or that phrase used by many a drunken would-be Lothario slurring in a nightclub: “Oh come on, I promise it won’t take long” You could take to wandering Prince’s Street in the belting rain that passes for Summer in the UK, with a sandwich board stating: “At Least It’s Dry” (this doesn’t always hold true, of course, as I once did a student revue that was billed as “dangerous comedy”, mainly because there was a leak that fell onto the stage nightly from the corrugated iron roof). You could hire a bus with an ad on the side proclaiming: “It’s Just Some Bloke Talking In A Corner For An Hour” (which my Nan once said; she didn’t miss much).

Come on, it could work…couldn’t it? Scunners!

Steve Gribbin and his trusty guitar look back at a life spent in comedy in "Laugh At First Sight", 7pm at The Stand II  every day except the 15th