Dores, Loch Ness, 10-12 June 2011

I ALWAYS thought that comedy didn’t belong outdoors.  I imagined comedy like something you kept in the dark, preferably in a cellar, in case it escaped and went streaking through an old folk’s home.

Stand up is usually best when it’s hidden, like some guilty secret, away from the light of day where you can’t see how twisted it really is. That’s why I was doubtful that anyone could perform stand up in a tent at a rock festival with any degree of success.

Yet there we were, in a tent, in a field, in the afternoon, I kid you not, the afternoon! There are some comedians I know that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in daylight.  Comedians are creatures of the night – in the Edinburgh Fringe you occasionally glimpse them, pale and blinking, feeling their way along the Royal Mile, blinded by the sun.

Not only are these comedians about to perform outdoors in daylight but they are actually going to do it in the countryside – this is probably the furthest any of them has ever been from the back door of a comedy club.

Alan Anderson Opens the show

RockNess had pulled together a dozen or so of Scotland’s most experienced comedians with a mixture of Irish and Australian talent thrown in which, come to think of it, is pretty representative of the Scottish comedy scene.

Talking to the comedians back stage before the show opened it was obvious no one was too sure how the rockiness crowd would respond to material that was normally served up in comedy clubs across the country. As soon as the first compere of the afternoon, Alan Anderson, hit the stage, it was obvious that the crowd were up for comedy.

Anderson was loud, crude and raucous, and the audience loved him.  It was no mean feat trying to engage with the festival crowd so early in the day but Anderson is such an experienced emcee that he managed to get the audience baying for comedy in no time.

Billy Kirkwood

Billy Kirkwood took the Chairman’s role as the opener on Saturday and by then the audience filled the tent to capacity and their enthusiasm for comedy was obvious.

“The show was in insane amount of fun,” Kirkwood explained in a few free moments from the madness. “It was a comedy gang bang. The audience were as crazy as we were.”

Which is some comment coming from Mr Kirkwood who is master of mayhem at his own comedy club Sidesplitters in Irvine. “It was all incredibly high energy, we had everything including a comedy lap dance, one guy dressed as a tiger, and another one who came as a hot dog.”

There was even Osama Bin Laden in the audience, looking remarkably well, I thought, considering everything.  “It’s pretty full on for two hours,” said Kirkwood, “I do my first two hours then Scott takes over.  I thought, There’s six hours of comedy about to start here, if I bomb and it goes pants, shit, it’s all my fault.”

The comedy tent

Scott Agnew, was hilarious, as ever.  But then if you are a six foot five, gay ginger Glaswegian, you can’t hide, so I suppose you have to be funny.  Despite Agnew’s laid back style his wit was razor sharp and his uncompromising humour honed to perfection.  Agnew takes no prisoners and leaves his audience reeling.  It is very easy to see why he was Scottish comedian of the year in 2008.

Australian comedian Mac Star made a rare appearance in the comedy tent.  Multi talented Star has sidelined his comedy career over the past few years to concentrate on his musical career.  “You just have to keep it high energy and go for it in a place like this,” he even had people rearranging the furniture in the tent.  How funny do you have to be to get people to laugh at a sofa?

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay around for headline act Sean Hughes but I was told he stormed the place and I have no reason to doubt it.   Over the whole weekend there must have been around thirty comedians on the comedy tent stage and the show proved beyond all doubt that you can perform stand up comedy in a tent, in a field during the day.

It may be that you need a whole bunch of high energy comedians to do it and subtler and less “in your face” comedians might struggle, but at RockNess they got the mixture just right. The whole atmosphere was laid back and fun loving and the comedy tent fitted in well with the festival.  I think there may have been some music on as well.

© John Burns, 2011

Links

• RockNess 2011
• Sidesplitters on Facebook