Circuit Training 82: Fred's not Dead

As several previous Circuit Training interviewees have pointed out, a popular comic suddenly stepping back from TV can really concern the general public. Vanish from the nation's front rooms and people naturally assume that you've got a nasty ailment, or worse.

It's 20-odd years since Fred MacAulay first burst onto British telly, bringing his erudite Perthshire wit to various panel shows (I have an enduring fondness for one particular QI adlib - see below). But 18 years ago Fred started a daily show for BBC Radio Scotland, an undeniably handy gig which did also curtail his wider progress, somewhat. How big could he be if he'd turned it down and remained on his previously upwardly-mobile course? We'll get to that.

Recently that radio run came to a slightly contentious conclusion, however, and Fred has now re-entered the full-time jobbing-comic fray (he'd still been popping up on Radio 4 a fair bit anyway, in truth), kicking off with a UK tour. Everywhere from Canterbury to Cockermouth. Ah, Cockermouth.

So let's start with those gigs.

What's the tour show about then Fred? Is it the same one you did at the Fringe this year?

Actually no, it's a wee bit of the last two years' shows in Edinburgh, and I'll bring in some of the stuff I was doing this year as well, as it's relevant: what Scotland has gone through over the last 24 months in the lead up to the referendum, how that might be an indication of how things will go when the UK gets round to its referendum.

The good thing about politics, it's forever moving on and providing new material. It's great to have been involved with The News Quiz this last 19 years. You realise that there's always going to be material, even on a bad news week.

I suppose it's tricky finding material on a good news week... or a really, really bad news week?

Yeah, after disasters and deaths, the attitude is always 'we'll find something.'

It's been quite a newsworthy year for you personally, with the radio show finally finishing.

It's really changed my mornings. I get up a wee bit later now, make myself some porridge, then at half past nine I start ringing up PPI companies. Someone rings up now and says 'would you like to take part in a survey?' I say 'yes!' But yeah, I had a coffee with one of my producers the other day, and I said 'listen, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I haven't missed the radio once since leaving,' and that's been six months.

Although I'll be honest, they [BBC Radio Scotland] were still doing the live shows at the Fringe, with Kay Adams at the helm, which I absolutely adored - that was tough for me. But it meant that I was at least able to see some shows that I wouldn't be able to before. When I was doing it, you'd have nine or 10 guests a day, so nearly 150 different acts coming through.

Crikey. What timeslot did you do again?

10:30am to midday. And again this was a post referendum thing, the management of the BBC believed that there was more of an appetite in the Scottish listeners for something a wee bit more political, and they didn't want this humorous break in the day's schedule. Whether that was the real reason or not, that was the reason they gave me. Although I did catch [the show] yesterday; they were talking about how thick your tights should be for September, so what the political viewpoint on that is I don't know.

I assumed that you'd decided to leave, after doing it for so long. Would you have carried on?

Maybe for another 18 months or so...

[At this point a bizarre gurgling noise renders Fred's musings inaudible, as if the BBC are scrambling our mobile signal. Very sinister. We try again...]

Yeah, I would have gone on for maybe a year or two, but I always wanted to leave with the energy, desire and hopefully the stage skills to do stand-up. It's not like this'll be the last tour, I see this as the start of a biannual thing.

I recently read Phill Jupitus' book about launching 6Music, and he had serious reservations about what taking the job would do to his stand-up career - did you have to weigh up whether to take it?

I did, I totally did, but it came a lot earlier in my career. I'd been self employed as a comedian for five years, and those five years had been pretty successful for me, I was starting to make waves on Radio 4 stuff, bits and pieces on TV, but primarily I was one of the MCs at The Comedy Store, so I was down there really regularly.

Back then Jongleurs only had two venues, Battersea and Camden, and I was one of the most regular MCs at Camden, for about 18 months. Then I proposed that they increase the fees, for the comedians, because it hadn't changed for a year or two. And they said 'no'. I'd been an accountant long enough to know what they were grossing at the door, at Camden especially, so I kicked that into touch.

But I'd effectively been away from home for five years, and I had family, my three kids were pretty young. So [the radio show] gave me the opportunity to have a home life. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do the late night gigs and travelling about but I still kept my hand in - initially my show was only four days a week, Monday to Thursday, so I could justify working on a Thursday and Friday.

I'm sure most people thought you'd been gigging in Scotland for years, but you weren't doing it long before you broke through?

No, I mean I worked as hard as I possibly could, good Presbyterian Scottish work ethic. My first forays into London, it was just the usual, 10 minutes here and there. But I very quickly got accepted into The Comedy Store, and that was great because it was five gigs over a weekend and a decent amount of money.

Then I did a lot of studio warm-ups. For four series I was the warm-up guy for Have I Got News For You, I warmed up for Rory Bremner, Paul Merton. I used to enjoy kicking about the studios, but again I made a very conscious decision to kick that into touch. The phone was ringing way too often with producers saying 'Fred, we've got a new thing coming up, and we think you'd be the ideal guy... to do the warm up.'

Ouch. You really have to break away from doing warm-ups for a show to ever get on it properly.

That's right, it was '95 when I did my first Have I Got News For You as a guest. Before that, when Roy Hattersley fails to turn up, rather than ask me to sit in they put a tub of lard on the desk!

In their defence, I suppose it is one of the most famous TV moments ever.

Absolutely, and in amongst my comedy memorabilia I've got the London Studios dressing room label from the door, for 'Tub of Lard'.

You certainly looked comfortable when you got on those shows though. One of my favourite TV ad-libs was your QI one about the curry... do you remember that?

I don't!

It was something about a picture of a curry looking like someone had just regurgitated it. At which point you said 'Prepare a bed of rice, Morag, the children will eat!'

Ah, it was obviously a genuine ad lib then. It does sound like me - my female characters are always Morag or Margaret! QI was great, I only did a couple and I'd love to do more - I don't know what you do to keep knocking on the door for those kinds of things.

I've never really chased after stuff. But the comedy industry has changed so much - the Fringe now, if there were that many people doing shows when I started, I don't know if I would've bothered.

Do you think doing the radio show set you back, TV-wise?

It's a big question and one that I do think of. Without being big-headed, I could hold my own on the comedy circuit with all the guys who've broken through into megastardom, it wouldn't have been unusual to see a bill at The Comedy Store with me, Dara, Micky Flanagan and John Bishop, and nobody would've been head and shoulders above anybody else. But I've always maintained that you look at what's on your own plate, and in many respects I've had a very successful career, I've done well.

You're clearly still hugely popular at the Fringe, and in Scotland generally.

But it's funny, my shows at the Fringe don't get reviewed a lot. They sell well, and I've got an audience, so the papers think 'what's the point of reviewing him?' But I was referred to this year in a couple of articles as 'veteran' and 'legend.' I'll take legend. Veteran I'm not sure about...

It's nice to have the recognition factor I suppose.

There's a show I did with [former Scotland striker] Ally McCoist 15 years ago, it's still talked about with a degree of warmth that takes me unawares. I rarely see him, but I bumped into him in a restaurant a few months ago, we're standing having a blether, and within seconds people were getting up from their tables wanting their photos taken, 'are you guys getting back together?' - but that show doesn't get repeated anywhere.

It's easy to forget that he was flavour of the month on TV for a while, Question Of Sport and all that, before he went into football management.

Yeah, and I think he had a pretty unsatisfactory exit from Rangers. I think his ambition is still to manage, maybe in England or abroad, maybe not Scotland. I think he'd rather do that than TV.

So were you were two chatting about bad endings to your jobs?

Aye, I told him that I was about to join him on gardening leave, we could compare hanging baskets.

Back to your audience, presumably you get the Radio 4 listeners coming to see you? They're pretty loyal.

I do yeah, a lot of people know me from The News Quiz, and I was the token man on Bridget Christie's Mind The Gap. I'm very fond of Bridget, I really like what she does.

And you could actually see her Fringe show this year, that 11am slot, with you not doing the morning show?

I did, and she saw mine - we have a real mutual respect for what we do, fingers crossed we'll find another thing to do together on Radio 4. I should really be writing something for the both of us.

Can you write while you're on the road? How's your schedule looking?

Sometimes it's a train, other times a flight, a car, but I've no intention of writing during the tour. I'll take time to write afterwards: stand-up, radio - I should be collecting stuff for memoirs as well. Because you never know...ah, hang on a wee second, there's somebody at my door.

[Fred has long, friendly chat with an ebullient postman, and returns...]

I've no great expectations for the tour, just because of the number of people who are on the road these days. People's finances are limited, we're still in a period of austerity, everyone likes a good laugh but there's a limit to how much they'll spend.

Luckily you've still got that recognition factor, all those panel show repeats...

Thank god for Dave!

So what are you up to for the rest of today?

I'm hosting an award ceremony for the Scottish business community in the Glasgow Hilton tonight, then tomorrow I'm shooting an advert for the Scottish government for a bowel cancer campaign, and Saturday I'm climbing Ben Nevis.

Really?

Yeah - I climbed Kilimanjaro In 2007 and thought, 'this is crazy, I've not even been up the biggest mountain in Scotland,' so I'm doing that. Then the tour starts on Tuesday.

Do you have a blog? This'd be the ideal week to start one.

I don't! I'll just have to tweet as many photos as possible.

Fred MacAulay is touring the UK until late November. Visit www.fredmacaulay.com for details.