REVIEW: Scottish comic does his people proud
Craig Ferguson did a remarkable show at the Winspear Centre on Thursday night – considering that he appears to have no appreciable career plans since his talk show ended in 2014, beyond doing stand-up dates.
On what calls the “Hobo Fabulous” tour, Ferguson is a dyed-in-the-tartan Scot, for sure, and left absolutely nothing on table by the end of his extended 90-minute set. It was extended because he says he found out at the last minute that he would have no opener. His mea culpa was direct: “The first 20 minutes are going to suck.” He was wrong. Maybe it was a load of bollocks, but even with the scatterbrained manner in which the first off-the-cuff material was pumped out like rounds from an intermittently jamming Tommy gun, it still worked – the telltale sign of a real pro.
Ferguson has a very versatile style. He can sustain laughs while jumping seamlessly between crudely-direct cultural commentary and more thoughtful and introspective observational comedy. If such stream-of-consciousness content is a fair indication of where someone is at in their life, there seems to be some doubt that he even wants to be involved in the entertainment business at all. Scots can pick holes in just about anything, but he had absolutely nothing good to say about his chosen vocation, or anything associated with it – apart from his friendship with Kurt Russell, which appears to be going quite well.
OK, we get it – Ferguson is not interested in Twitter, Youtube, or shooting Netflix specials, which he was especially direct about, so where exactly was he going with this? Is this wandering Scot thinking of pulling up stakes, moving to the Lake District and opening up a bed ‘n’ breakfast? It seemed a possibility.
During his lighter moments, Ferguson cycled through a nostalgia trip, speaking with genuinely fondness about his Uncle James, and a long lost love named Dawn Harrison (and now, recently divorced!), a thwarted teenage target for his amorous affections, and more. These stories came across as unusually sincere, given that comedy mostly stays with the gut and doesn’t often venture in the direction of the heart.
It was also oddly charming how Ferguson took a very soft approach to slagging our city. He didn’t need a sledgehammer, he poked and prodded us with a set of comic fine motor skills that made him quite endearing.
Ferguson is a bit of an odd duck. He’s been unusually candid and unaffected about his struggles with depression, and alcoholism and drug abuse. Perhaps this explains his nuanced style. He’s not one of the many who’ve flamed out and killed themselves or died in some horrendous accident. He’s in the other camp: he survived and lived to tell about it. Comics by nature use themselves as fodder for material, leaving the darkest places for the tour bus and the hotel room. Not Ferguson.
There’s one thing Scots aren’t generally guilty of – unless we’re speaking about the 2014 independence referendum – and that’s cowardice. It’s one thing for Chuck Lorre to create Mom, a show featuring characters struggling with alcoholism, and another to bring one’s own struggles into a stand up routine, and to handle it in a way that was respectful of himself and his experiences.
With a style that steers clear of harshness or judgment, Ferguson is a smart, engaging and grounded comedian whose subtlety belies greater depth. For these reasons the Scottish Parliament might want to consider to casting a bust of him and sticking it on the Royal Mile somewhere. He’s a real gift to their cultural identity, and to the world of comedy.
