Mortimer: Doug, your last appearance at the Edinburgh Festival was back in 2002 when you won the Strathmore Press Award. What have you been up to since then?

Stanhope: I hosted The Man Show - a low-brow, tongue-in-cheek misogyny fest on Comedy Central. A decent paycheque but little or no artistic payoff. It had a few moments but not nearly enough. Otherwise, I’ve just been working the road steady.

Mortimer: Awards at the Fringe can have a tendency to catapult a comedian’s career into the celebrity limelight (the most prestigious of which is the Perrier). Was it a conscious strategy to not appear at the Festival for two consecutive years in a row after winning the Strathmore?

Stanhope: No, I was busy filming the show last summer. And with all due respect to the Strathmore, any award is just someone’s opinion - no different than someone who says you suck. Can’t give one credit and not the other.

Mortimer: Your style of comedy has been likened to that of the late Bill Hicks. That seems like a heavy torch to carry. Does this comparison bother you in any way? Do you find audiences, for example, come to your shows with certain expectations?

Stanhope: No, the comparison doesn't bother me. The repeated question about whether it bothers me or not, that bothers me. And I never know why any audience member is there. They could be expecting any number of things and all with good reason. So I just do what I do and try to only impress myself. Usually, if I'm happy with it, so are they.

Mortimer: Last year when we met up in Los Angeles I discerned a fundamental difference between the British and American sense of humour. Where we Brits tend to be more cynical there seems an inherent sense of optimism across the pond. How do American audiences take to your dark sense of humour? Do you notice any difference in audience reaction when gigging in the U.K.?

Stanhope: I don't know that I'd call Americans optimists so much as blissfully unaware - if I may generalise. The major difference in the audiences is that in Edinburgh, sometimes I had to read the newspaper to get an idea as to whether they liked it. Polite bunch, them.

Mortimer: Yeah, but I also remember you saying that there seemed to be a fight on every street corner after a certain time of night in Edinburgh, so it would seem that the general human belligerence of our nations can’t be all that different. Do you think this implies that comedy is viewed by the British public as more of an art form? For example: the comic Dwight Slade told me last year that he was generally surprised by how comedy is regarded for its aesthetic as well as social analytic value over here.

Stanhope: It does seem that stand-up comedy is more respected at Edinburgh than in the States. I couldn't tell you if Edinburgh is indicative of all the UK. To judge American comedy by either the Aspen Festival or a sports bar one-nighter in Minot, North Dakota alone would be irresponsible.

Mortimer: You’ve got a bit of a reputation for being somewhat crude in your act with a tendency to use a number of gags for specific shock value. How does the use of this material influence the way in which audiences perceive the rest of your performance? I guess what I’m trying to say is: what purpose exactly does the likes of the ‘Tit Fuck Joke’ serve?

Stanhope: U.S. audiences are usually drunker with bullwhip attention spans. They can require loud blasts and verbal carnage to keep them awake and looking forward. Not that I use smut begrudgingly. Sickness and vulgarity make me laugh. A lot. I tend to mix it up - and maybe to my own detriment. A good portion of people like either the politics or the smut and wish I'd leave all the other out.

Mortimer: In the past few years you seem to have refined your stand-up act considerably; your material has also tended to become more political with what may appear to some as possessing an anti-American edge. How much has 9-11 and the subsequent ‘War On Terror’ contributed to this?

Stanhope: Well, if anything, it forced instant awareness of some level onto almost everyone. There was - at least initially - nobody who didn't have an opinion, even if it was completely knee-jerk and uninformed. And once they think they have an opinion - whatever it is - it gives you a new opportunity to show them why that opinion sucks. Apathy is tough breeding ground for comedy. I'd rather have furious disagreement.

Mortimer: So you see part of your act as a means for evolving ideas and perceptions?

Stanhope: Uh...sure.

Mortimer: Joe Rogan, your co-host in The Man Show, is also an exceptionally provocative stand-up comic in his own right, as well as the host of the reality TV show Fear Factor (which we’ve been getting across here). How did two of America’s most dissident outlaw comics get airtime on the Fox Network? That’s quite an achievement given the current political and patriotic climate in the States. Did the producers have any idea what they were letting themselves in for?

Stanhope: It wasn't on the Fox Network, although they'd put anything on that would make them money, regardless of the political viewpoint.

Mortimer: I read somewhere on the Boston Globe website that The Man Show has recently been cancelled. You were also quoted as liking the whole experience to how a Native American believes that a camera steals away a person’s soul. So far the producers have failed to make any comment. Is it possible that the brutal honesty and subversive nature of you and Rogan’s stand-up material might’ve influenced their decision to axe the show à la Michael Moore style?

Stanhope: Not even close. There was no subversion of any measurable amount that ever made it on that show. It got cancelled because it sucked. Trying to fit Rogan and my type of comedy into the framework that was already laid out on that show was like trying to fit a shoe in an asshole. It never looked anything less than uncomfortable.

Mortimer: The comedian Jack Dee once used a line that I thought was one of the best for dealing with hecklers, he said: “it’s a night out for him and a night off for his family.” How do you personally deal with that one annoying idiot that is hell-bent of ruining the show for everyone else?

Stanhope: It depends on the specific circumstances. But when it comes down to it - if they are only trying to fuck up the show - throwing them out quickly is always the best. You can give ’em a verbal beating but that just brings out the bloodlust of the mob and they won’t wanna hear the material so much afterwards. When you run out of a bar to watch a fistfight, the band never seems as good when you go back in.

Mortimer: Your arrival at the festival last time was preceded by a considerable amount of disapproval being voiced by the sensationalist mainstream media in this country. Much of this seemed to originate from Jeannette Walls of MSNBC and her revulsion to anything humorous relating to 9-11. What new things are you bringing to the festival this year that are likely to upset the shallow perceptions of a tabloid gossip columnist?

Stanhope: New things? Oh, shit. Um...I have a new bit about...uh...fags? No, I have no idea what I'll be talking about two months from now. And you certainly can’t tell what some gossip asshole will find easily spinnable that day or I'd do it more often.

Mortimer: I can see you and Joan Burnie of Daily Record fame having a field day together, maybe you should send her a free ticket to your show? After all if Kylie Minogue’s ass can offend her, think of what you’d be capable of.

Stanhope: I have no idea who that is. Regardless, you're the only one who gets a free ticket.

Doug Stanhope will be playing at the Edinburgh Comedy Room (The Tron, Hunter Square, Royal Mile) from 25th to 31st August 2004. Shows commence 10:30 pm and tickets are priced £8 (available from the Fringe Box Office, 180 High Street, Edinburgh).

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