“Ah want your dug to come and apologise tae mah dug.”
“Apologise? Tae your dug? How exactly am ah gonnae manage that?”
“No mah problem. You trained it. And no very well, ah might add…”

The opening of The Moira Monologues takes us into deepest, darkest Falkirk, where Moira, the lippy chain-smoking cleaner, is berating her neighbour for the bad attitude his Rottweiller has been displaying towards her beloved Pepe, and demanding a canine apology in person. And, this being Moira, she of course gets that apology…

Alan Bissett is better known as an author [ Boyracers (2001), The Incredible Adam Spark (2005), Death of a Ladies' Man (July 2009). alanbissett.com ], but with this performance, he must also be acknowledged as a very fine character actor. Playing the lead female character entirely straight, Bissett also seamlessly inhabits other unforgettable characters – a huge male bouncer, Diesel the Rottweiler, Pepe the Yorkshire terrier, and Charlie the smooth-talking teacher all appear crisply and physically in front of the audience. It’s an unforgettable performance of jaw-dropping quality that rightfully gained huge applause, foot stomping, and massive whoops and cheers from a full house on its first night.

Understanding Scots dialect (Falkirk homo vulgaris Hallglenis) is probably an advantage when coming to this performance, especially with the visceral volley of foul expletives that first launches us into Moira’s world, but on enquiry, a native Russian audience member who spends most of her time in Russia, happily reported that the language gap did not inhibit her enjoyment. The xenophobic and bigoted elements of Moira’s psyche were most definitely not lost in translation, as the hilarious riff on exceptions to enjoying membership of Jock Tamson’s Bairns’ Club showed, with such groups as The Catholics, The Huns, Muslims, Paedophiles, Big Brother contestants, and of course The Edinbourgousie all being summarily excluded. The irony of a broadly middle-class Edinburgh audience getting its rocks off as it is itself being so roundly derided and abused by the characters before it on stage is part of the delicious class-conscious cubism that Bissett paints in this piece, and in his novels.

The episodic settings are wonderfully paced in this hour, and although laced with huge humour and devastating one-liners, more serious themes emerge, in particular with Moira incisively questioning the middle-class obsession with being or becoming someone or something. The couch setting for the drunken football-inspired monologues is just perfect, the body language surrounding the seduction (more like an entrapment) of Charlie, the physical reality of a Rottweiller growling and slavering in front of you, the flick of imaginary cigarette ash as Moira leans on her mop, and the whining hand-wringing of a put-upon neighbour illuminate and underline already memorable, authentically paced, witty and plain bloody hilarious dialogue.

The Moira Monologues also benefit from being presented in an intimate and humane venue, in a small room inside the National Library of Scotland – somewhere you feel refreshingly unlike being just another member of a herd of cattle rounded up and packed into a soulless and stuffy darkened room.

See this. It’s astounding, insightful, very Scottish, a wee bit sad and elegiac, but mainly very, very funny, and reveals Bissett as a quite extraordinary stage presence.

David Petherick ||| @clarocada

Tommy Lee and Sylvester Stallone live in Edinburgh. Sort of. Celebrity Autobiography.

Suddenly, there is the sound of ‘giggling’ between Taylor (Tiffany Stephenson) and Burton (James Lance) and with the subtle exchanges of glances, wry facial expressions and tiny elements of body language, all at once, you have Taylor and Burton live on stage. They’re just there.

It’s a clue to why this show has enjoyed so much success, running for three years in New York, winning a Drama Desk award last year, and having featured the likes of Matthew Broderick within its line-up. A London West End run is probably inevitable later in the year – this will be a huge hit in Edinburgh.

The structure of ‘Celebrity Autobiography’ is frighteningly simple: an ensemble of actors perform from the verbatim autobiographic memoirs of a wide range of celebrities. And inevitably, with a little judicious selection and editing, many of these celebrities are hoist by their own petard, displaying their aching self-importance, pretentiousness, vacuousness, stupidity, vanity, downright weirdness and simple stupidity…

• Sylvester Stallone asks if we have talked to our muscles lately. I mean really talked.
• Mr T of A-Team fame stuns us by learning 7 pages of dialogue in just three days. And then ad-libbed!
• Tommy Lee reveals his tips for the best oral sex performance when you ‘go south on a lady’. Get some air in there.
• David Cassidy fails to have sex with his TV sister because she’s not slutty enough. But what the hell, he woke up with an erection anyway.
• Diana Ross fails to stop the rain and has a wet dream without even being consulted. And explains how she almost had to leave Central Park on foot!
• Tiger Woods shows us his ‘putting’ technique step-by-step, loose left hand and rigid thumbs included. And to think, until the age of 20, like most young guys, he though every ‘putt’ was a good one.

Celebrity AUtobiography is a show that makes you laugh. And laugh a lot. And the performances are far more than ‘readings’. The staging is sparse and simple, but this allows you to focus on the dialogue, and, whether it’s one actor, a pair, or a group interacting on stage, you can really savour the pauses, sidelong glances, smiles, occasional looks of horror and the delicious, almost unbelievable awfulness of the material being aired. You really can’t make this stuff up – it’s priceless.

I’d go to see this again, in an instant. I suspect this will sell out fast, so I recommend you get your seats booked, bring a friend, remember to grab a drink to enjoy during the show, and perhaps you’ll want to add a few autobiographies to your reading list afterwards.

David Petherick ||| @clarocada

At the Opening Party of the 25th Edinburgh International Book Festival, Literary Agent Jenny Brown, shows off her surprise “Freedom of the Edinburgh International Book Festival” Award to Allan Little of the BBC. The inscription reads: “In Honour of 25 years of Dedication to Mud-Girt Tents and Unstinting Niceness”.

Jenny was the first Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which remains in its amazing home of Charlotte Square Gardens, but has grown considerably in size and stature over the years.

Further details about the Edinburgh International Book Festival here >

David Petherick and Bill Patterson at Edinburgh Book Festival 09-Aug-08

The Edinburgh International Book Festival kicked off yesterday, starting its 25th year. I was delighted to meet up with Bill Paterson, a great actor, and also, of course, an author. As you can see, it was another glorious Scottish summer evening. The rain was not horizontal.

Shall we plug the book with a link here Bill? No, too crass.

Just follow @edinburghfest on Twitter to keep up to date.

See BBC News Report >

The signings followed a hilarious and witty interview between the two authors, both from Canada, which included live questions from the Edinburgh audience.

Due to obvious time restraints, there were only a limited number of signings available, and high-tech met low-tech as audience members queueing for entry were handed raffle tickets for the chance to have a book signed, and Margaret Atwood, inventor of the Long Pen, and a distinguished novelist herself, drew the numbers from the hat.

Just 30 lucky audience members then were able to have their book placed on the amazing “long pen” device, and see and talk to the author signing their book from Canada – who naturally could see and talk to them – all of which was live, broadcast onto large screens, as part of the evening’s event. These tete-a-tete chats will also be added to the Long Pen web site, so that audience members will have the ability to share their chat with the author with a wider audience.

Roza Nazipova, my wife and business partner, asked a question during the audience questions sessions, which was largely, but charmingly, sidestepped by Alice Munro – as to her favourite Scottish or Russian authors, but she did confess to be working on writing about a Russian historical figure. Roza was lucky enough to have her number chosen for a book signing. In one of those odd coincidences in life, so too was a Canadian girl directly behind Roza in the queue, performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a lifelong fan of both authors, and who had the sequential ticket above Roza’s winner (103 just for the curious numerologists among you). Naturally, she had booked her ticket online… but due to a glitch somewhere, had initially received the wrong tickets – but still, here she was. Roza had queued for five hours in June to make sure she had tickets for this event. It all seems to have been worth the effort.

Here is the signing taking place, and Roza Nazipova talking to Alice Munro:

Here is the signature (the book’s action begins in Edinburgh):

And here is Margaret Atwood adding her signature and inscription:

And this is the full inscription, which reads:
‘Alice Munro
and Margaret Atwood
did via LongPen on
August 15 2007′

A big thank you to Catherine Lockerbie, Edinburgh Book Festival Director, and all of the technical staff, for a long anticipated event that will be long remembered – not just for its novelty, but also for the wit, charm and humour of these two amazing authors.

And just think of all those air miles saved…

>> Edinburgh Book Festival