Scott Capurro

The Stand 2
*****

If you haven’t seen this show yet, go now before he books out! Capurro is highly offensive in the extreme, and offers no apologies as he jokes about AIDS, cancer, the Holocaust and battered women. He claims to not read the newspapers because they’re not about him, but his political satire is so up to date that it’s clear this man does his research. Capurro cuts not just close to the bone but right through it with comments like ‘Jesus clearly had no safe word - either that or he was loving it too much on that cross’ and ‘AIDS was the best thing to happen to gays. You fuck till you die - and who wants to be 50 and gay??’ His audience interaction was hilarious - I’m just glad I was hiding behind a rather large man who invoked the wrath of Capurro!

Jodi Fleming

So Kate Copstick came and saw my show, and it was a very fun night. i like Kate’s enthusiasm about the festival; and i felt, when she was there, like i should try and do the show the way i wanted to do it. All throughout the festival, I’ve wanted the audience to be playful, and slightly joyous, so that when i drop the emotional bomb at the end, they feel a part of the narrative. My last five minutes won’t finish with a laugh unless the audience is sort of calm.
So I went to the green room, and prepared a show that was more relaxed, i moved some bits around, added some new stuff i’d NEVER done on stage before, and once on stage, it all fell into place. The changes I made were so almost basic, but necessary, like discovering penicillin. I stopped pushing. I warmed up the crowd, let them in, then twisted them around a bit. It was like holding hands and dancing together. I was excited.
Afterward, the show felt buzzy to me, my head was whirling afterward, i felt like i’d found its narrative and the audience seemed challenged and willing to go with me. I actually shook hands with audience members as they left, older folk who’d seen me on the Hamilton’s lunchtime show. they were beaming. I felt like I’d made my set accessible. That’s always been my greatest challenge as a comic.
I’ve posted the Scotsman’s review. It’s good. And Scotsgay gave me 5. I’m sort of relieved, even the gays like me!
xx

Scott Capurro

****

KATE COPSTICK

THE STAND (VENUE 5)

WELL, now I have seen everything. After this show I watched Scott Capurro - the man who makes sulphuric acid look like Oil of Olay - stand upstairs in The Stand, shaking hands with his entire audience of mainly middle-aged, upper middle class, Scottish-conservative, straight folk while they told him how much they had enjoyed it and how clever he was. I just joined in on the end of the line behind the elderly gentleman who had never heard of Capurro, but had seen him having Lunch With The Hamiltons and been impressed with his quick wit.

The elderly gentleman had been rather less impressed with Capurro’s “obsession with all the gay stuff” in his own show but was still a fan of the intelligence, the quickfire wit and the (his word) charm behind the heat-seeking barbs about Jews, children, chavs, dwarfs, transsexuals, the Chinese, Christopher Reeve, Oprah and having sex with a man with no hands.

Capurro still rushes in where most straight comedians would be terrified to tread and his act is played out to a backing track of gasping, ohhh-ing and oooing and the sound of bums shifting uneasily in seats, but this year, playing - as he points out - to 28 people in a toilet (it is not, he is upstairs in Stand II, which it is not exactly the EICC, but rather a nice room, although I appreciate it is a whole new, tiny world for a man whom I last saw plying Pleasance 1), there is real warmth in his warm-up, real sadness in his finish and in between, no-one was mentally scarred for life by his merciless pillory. The couple in the front row may take a little while to get their relationship back on an even keel after Capurro’s attentions, but they never stopped laughing.

As usual, much of the show is taken up cruising Capurro’s sex life for rough trade. And some of it is pretty rough. But now the swizzle-stick thin American has opened up the act a little. There is some nice political stuff, a whole bunch of great one-liners and a surprisingly good impression of a big, butch, black porn star. And there is personal stuff. This is quite a different Scott Capurro. He’s never going to wear his heart on his sleeve, but we finally get to see here that he has one.

• Until 27 August. Today 9.30pm

So i showcased for the Letterman folk last night at the Gilded Balloon. Wasn’t sure if I should go totally clean, or try to be a bit riske, or, actually, just do what I think is funny. I think I combined all three. The word ‘nigger’ slipped in. Ooops. And I think I said ‘dicksmoker’. Other than that, I was well-behaved. Some of the other comics were so nervous, but I just thought, they’ll know in the first 2 minutes whether they even want to speak to us after this show, so really, it’s best to just be ourselves. Does that sound very very Lezzie/Vegan/Organic? I get spiritual during TV auditions, because the talent on stage has so little power over the outcome. Either they want what you can do or they don’t. It’s not competitive. You’ve a 50/50 chance of getting the gig. Breath.
My show was fun last night, not the best audience but playful and lovely, and 2 kids brought their dad to see me. One, Scott, was 18 and tall and sweet and gay and his dad folded his arms and huffed, but was basically a good sport. They stayed around for a photo after. Hopefully Scott’s touching himself to that photo right now. One can only hope.
I had to run off to another show, but not before Norman Pace, with whom I share management, let me know how much he loved the show. He thought my cleverest lines were wasted on comedy philistines. Maybe I’m just too tall, and the crowd is a bit skittish, terrified I’ll pounce, but really, for me, the show flew by. Which is a good sign. I think I’m finding my way.
XX

Day whatever, I’m here in Edinburgh, still, and I’m wondering what I want to do with my show. I love it, and the audiences have been fine, I’m selling out with very few reviews which is what I told myself I wanted. But now of course I’d like to be reviewed, by someone smart who can explain to me why, on some nights, the audiences play along with my political diatribe and gay sex antics; and then, on other nights, they just fucking stare at me and I wonder, why would you pay to stalk me? It’s creepy, they sit in the front row and observe me, with me silently considering, when will they roll down the window, when will they poke at me with sticks or see how I feed? Are they all here because I’ve been on the telly a few times? Or do they want to see what I’m wearing this year? Or is Phil Nicholl sold out, so they’re settling for me? I consider doing older material, stuff I know works and will whip them up, but this is the show I’ve brought up and this is the show I want them to see.
I go home, slightly dejected, sure that everything must be rewritten immediately, maybe updated to reflect the UN resolutions or Bush’s most recent blunder. I rehearse, I rethink, I reshape, then the next night, the crowd is sold out again, but this time playful and giggly and the entire show flies up, up and out of my hands and takes on a bigger life, one of its own and the ending is as much a suprise to me as it to everyone else. And then I’m a genius, I’ve made the right moves, until the next night when they dedide to be priggish again. And that’s the night Paul Provenza, a comic I so greatly admire, is in the audience. Of course. why couldn’t he come last night? And why didn’t I become a history teacher when I had the chance? Is it too late? I’m greying now, maybe this is an even better time to wear wool and seduce 19 year olds in study hall.
Then I do a late night set, at Spank or with the BBC at the Dome or at the Tron, where they braying masses have not paid to necessarily see me, and the audience are incredible. Boisterous, angry, sure, but that’s why I’m up here: To confront their fear with my own, and see just how explosive we can become. Maybe it’s too late, maybe comedy has become comfortable, my ’style’ or whatever has become obscelete, like an old handbag. I dunno.
I’m auditioning for Letterman people tonite. Me and everyone else. I have no idea how I’ll start my set, but, knowing me, as I claim to, I’ll professionally shoot myself in the foot. Maybe a kiddie porn gag to just get things going. And that’s both the beginning and the end of my American TV career.
I need a wife. I saw Dr. CocacolaMacdonald’s show at the Hollyroot Tavern last night. He is like a slightly autistic child, dolled up in quickly-applied clown make up, running around in his tropical pants and virtually making up songs with loud instruments and tired back up beats. Hilarious, though there were just 4 of us, with Stewert Lee egging the doctor on. And in the corner, sitting demurely to my left, was the performer’s wife, watching with such beaming pride as her husband made brilliant mockery of musical styles, live performance and the fringe itself. I blushed, with envy for them both.
xx

Scott Capurro - Comedy

Watching Scott Capurro do stand-up is like taking a ride down a huge brae on a rickety old go-cart. It’s often exhilarating, but you’re not quite sure if it’ll end in disaster. The manic San Franciscan delivers his material at breakneck speed, rapidly self-editing as he goes, and tailoring his material to whoever catches his eye in the audience that night. The front row here is definitely not for the faint-hearted. On the night in question, the presence of a Saturday dad with his two teenage kids was like a red rag to a bull for the merciless Capurro.

As ever there are pops at imbecile world leaders as well as some close to the knuckle material about his sexual encounters. This includes one eye-watering account of his blind date with a thalidomide guy, which culminated in a one-night stand for curiosity’s sake; and a graphic description of the business of fucking twinks with plucked eyebrows (like making love to a glazed ham). The material is shot through with a brutal honesty and pathos, from a performer whose ennui is legendary. (Allan Radcliffe)

The Stand II, 558 7272, until 27 Aug (not 14), 9.30pm, £8 (£7).
This show is part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Visit its site for more booking information.

Scott Capurro - Yankee Dog-Pig
The Stand

When Scott Capurro opens with the innocent line “Have you read the Qur’an?” you have two choices - run for the hills or sit back, enjoy and be damned for

all time. Mind you, as a beleaguered (mainly by lesbians) gay man, Capurro’s a great believer in equal opps, so Jews, Christians (er, make that Catholics) and George Bush’s satanic family all fall under his satirical blade.

He is sleeker and wittier than ever before and there can be few comics who make an art of insulting their audience while simultaneously seducing them. What else would make you sit for an hour and laugh as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to learn that Capurro misses the days when Aids killed you quickly, disarmingly admits to stalking a cute member of the previous night’s audience, or wonders if Bush plays Blair like a puppet because he has a photo of the PM porking a pig.

There are few lines that Capurro hasn’t crossed but even he seemed pleasantly pleased with himself after blurting out a graphic guide to Tom Cruise’s bedtime habits (you really don’t want to know), the undeniable attraction of all those naked bodies piled up in Abu Ghraib jail, or how he once found great comfort in the quadriplegia of ex-Superman Christopher Reeve. Essential if squirm-making viewing.

So my flatmate here in Edinburgh was just saying she wants to go home now, she’s done 3 previews of her comedy show and she feels like she’s made her point. I reassured her: You’ve only got 22 more to go, so relax. Pace yourself. She’s edited her show everyday, changed a bit here and there, but it’s rough when you’re on a script. The changes are usually minor, and once the reviews are out it seems pointless to do anything else but the text that’s been reviewed.
I’ve been there. At some point, during this marathon run, you embrace what you’ve written and hold onto it defensively, thinking, well, i’m paying to be here, i’m gonna do what I think is fucking funny, whether or not it makes me look like a cunt. Her show, my flatmate’s piece, is great, I’ve seen it three times and I found it intriguing and hilarious. It’s her baby, she loves it. Making big changes now, before it’s had a chance to find its own audience and sort of grow organically, would be like giving one’s infant a nose job.
I on the other hand am doing stand up, which changes majorly just about every hour of the day. At noon I think it’s great. By four I’m sure it’s menacing and bitter. By showtime, I fucking don’t care and just wanna get on with it.
I rehearse my set constantly, on the street, or while shaving, or while shaving on the street - HOT - and I jiggle and juggle new jokes with scripted material, stirring together what I hope is a different pot of tangy comedy stew every night.
Last night, I’m glad I was well-rehearsed, because some divorced dad from Manchester had his 2 kids for the weekend, and he brought them to my show. James is 14, and Melissa is 16. Oh yes, I know all about them, because they came in late, sat in the front row, and so had to be diddled with. And there’s no way I would’ve felt confident enough to out James and spend time talking with Melissa about her virginal vagina if I didn’t have a memorized block of jokes in on the dock ready to roll out.
They were so naive, so fresh off the bus types, the dad and his two wards, that they almost seemed like plants. Of course no press was in. it was a fresh, lively show, at least, for me, but the press will only come along, I imagine, when I’m playing to palid, sullen locals. Again, that’s the beauty of live performance at the Fringe: You never know what to expect, so expect the 14 year old. I almost followed little James home after, just to make sure he was ok, but i think that would’ve been misinterpreted.
I am so fucking horny btw. Haven’t had sex since monday. It’s hard for me to do the toilet thing here, i torture the locals so often throughout the year with my ‘act’, that oddly i think i’m recognized when i cruise. At least, that’s what I tell myself. That look of disdain on the other naughty boys’ faces couldn’t be personal, right? I’m not a cock block, just a comic perriah, right? They’re not looking past me cuz I’m an old cunt with grey hair and skinny arms, right? it’s cuz I’m ‘dangerous’, RIGHT???
xx

So i’m on my way to Edinburgh, for the Fringe. I should be hoaning and reshaping my stunning stand up act, preparing it for the comedy vultures, but then why bother? I’ll write most of it up there, and it’s more likely i’ll end up chatting with the locals from the stage each night. It’s my only chance to come in contact with the common Scotch people, and I do so adore their boozy, slightly inane stories of incest and Big Brother fantasies, in that order please.
There’s a very cute skinny pale boy sitting across the aisle from me. In first class of course, so he’s posh and i’m over paid. He’s just ordered fruit cake. Little does he know he’s already got one, staring at him. I wonder if he’ll let me grope him, the way I groped a boy on the train in ireland. He was leaving the toilet, I was going into the toilet, we brushed torsos and i grabbed his ass. Am i getting more filthy, the more feeble i become? is this how it happens, is this how one becomes a nasty old man?
My ego is bruised today because i met up with an old flame in a sauna in waterloo last night, and after we’d been fucking for about 10 minutes, he took a break. and i never saw him again. We’d had dinner, caught up a bit, i hadn’t seen him in 5 years, he has a boyfriend so he’s sexually available, and he’d told me about all he wanted to do to me in an email the day before. The email was so long, so detailed, i took a viagra just to get through it. Luckily the effect was still warming my cock when we met, I felt ready to carry on and do my daddy duty - he’s short and has a slightly high voice, so i felt obligated - and once in him, he seemed to take to it well.
But I guess I couldn’t live up to the hype. Whom can? When I did see him later, in the locker room, he was going home with a welshman with an unpronouncable name. I might have done the same, were i slighly desperate for a bed, but whatever happened to “I’m going to kiss you all over…blah blah blah”? Is he crazy or just bored? Am I a retard for trying to rekindle, albeit briefly, an ancient romance?
I’ve often brow-beaten myself over not seeing a relationship through with this guy. Why didn’t i move to Australia? How could I let a hot Greek acrobat, someone all my friends adored and were lining up to fuck when he visited me in San Francisco, fly away home? Am I afraid of success, not only professionally, but personally?
Now I know why he and I never got together. Because he doens’t talk. He can’t tell me what he’s feeling. And I don’t like dating a trick. I’m not blaming him, mabye I’m too difficult to communicate with. I hate ending sentences with prepositions, but I’m weepy.
I ended up spending 4 orgasms with a boy from Seoul. A gorgeous South Korean with lots to say, even to me. Odd when you meet someone so sexually compatible, who also adores the same people you do (Jude Law) yet is mistrustful of the English. it’s reassuring, not to know that all queers are the same, but that two people from very far away places can meet in the damp miasma that is London and find, amongst the broken bottles and gutter language, a second to make eye contact and discuss something other than our cocks. Oh my god, I just became a lesbian. But I do know one thing: I’d love to have a reason to visit South Korea, other than sampling the eye ball stew.
See you at The Stand, in Edinburgh, for what feels like the rest of my life.
xxx
PS: the boy across from me just yawned and lifted his shirt to scratch his pale, bare side. do hot boys always know they’re hot? Jesus did. What would jesus do right now? Probably ask the guy for money. You know what pop idols are like: If they’re not sucking it in parks, they’re begging for change.
I’ll go now.
x