The Sunday Times
22 August 2004

My Edinburgh

The former Perrier award-winner Hardy gave up his life as a “bar-room hellraiser” to pursue a career in stand-up 20 years ago and has been entertaining audiences with his gripes on politics, class and dreary old England ever since. He returns to Edinburgh for a week before starting a UK tour in the autumn.

Favourite year

1984. My first year. The show was over by lunchtime and I had the rest of the day to myself. The weather was unexpectedly glorious and I borrowed a pair of shorts from a friend who came up from London. It was the first time Scots had seen a man in shorts and I was followed everywhere by an angry mob with pitch forks and burning torches. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get dark in the summer in Scotland so the blazing torches lost a lot of their impact. I think the mob got funding eventually.

Best digs

I’m hoping this year will be the best digs. The worst flat was in 1987, owned by a doctor who, owing to a screw-up with the estate agent, arrived home at 7am a day early to see Tony Hawks naked in the hall on his way to the toilet. We all had to pack up and move out while trying to make small talk with the doctor about his collection of hunting rifles. He complained that gun licences were being complicated by “this Hungerford nonsense”. The agent found us another flat for one day which had been wrecked by a student theatre company. It was obviously trashed before them anyway, so we carried on vandalising it.

Best of the fest

I’m going to see Noble and Silver. That will probably be it. I always mean to see theatre but never do. I’m only up for a week this year at the end of the festival and I’m planning to spend all day writing, which is even more unlikely than me seeing theatre.

Best night out

It’s all a bit of a blur but I remember most nights ending badly. It’s nice to get out of town a bit in the daytime. I have fond memories of Cramond and North Berwick, although thoughts of Cramond are now muddied by a bit in Irvine Welsh’s Marabou Stork Nightmares where the main character blows up a dog with fireworks.

Edinburgh in a nutshell

Edinburgh is the Athens of the north because it’s full of drunk English people throwing up everywhere. I like to perform outside festival time when there are fewer tourists and more tumbleweed. The city has a completely different atmosphere then. This year I’m trying to combine doing the festival with going on holiday, so I’m having to fly in from Barbados every evening.

Jeremy Hardy, Assembly Rooms, Aug 23-30