Today, I did a
lovely live interview over the phone to promote ‘Now Who’s a Comedian?' on Fife's K107FM.
While I’ve done
quite a few radio interviews in the past, mostly for Buddy, there’s always a bit
of nerves just before, particularly if - like today - you haven’t spoken to anyone
for a few hours before going on-air. You can feel strangely neutral and
personalityless, waiting at home in your slippers for the phone call.
Some of the interviews
I did for Buddy were ridiculous, as the show's producer expected me to do them as
if I was Holly himself. A few DJs got on board with this while others thought
I was a lunatic for suggesting it; one time, I remember an interviewer
deciding to use this as an excuse to test my knowledge about Holly’s
career by posing a list of trivia questions for which he clearly knew the answers.
Thankfully I knew my stuff too, but it was irritating to find myself walking a tightrope between promoting the show in an upbeat manner while juggling the facts and a
Texan accent; my Buddy definitely spent a lot of time in the Home Counties.
I needn’t have
worried about today’s interview, as it was very relaxed and covered a lot of ground. The host John Murray was an easy person to talk to who knew his stuff about the Fringe and had done his research on me. We talked about my
previous Fringe experiences, the derivation of my show’s title, how I
approached writing it (he says like it’s finished) and about my actor/muso
career. It turned out John had a vested interest in the fact I’d played Paul
McCartney and Buddy Holly in the past, as he’d written a play about the two of
them for which he’d struggled to find a suitable Macca; he assured me he’d drop me a
line about this once the Edinburgh madness had passed; the only problem is the
play is set in the late-1980s, so I’d have to age up ten years; perhaps
we could do it immediately after this year's Fringe run as I’ll look a lot older by then.