Once upon a time, in the crazy happy days before every comic lived only to achieve fame by hosting a reality TV show where the guests were all other comics who had achieved fame by hosting a reality TV show, there lived a man called Malcolm Hardee .
Malcolm was a man who grabbed comedy by its genitals, spun it around, marinated it in rum and coke and pulled it out onto a stage covered in balloons. His was first wave alternative comedy and it knew no fear.
The Times said, at the time “To say that he has no shame is to drastically exaggerate the amount of shame that he has”. Seems fair.
The Greatest Show on Legs (the sketch troupe he co-opted from Martin Soan) did not oversell itself with its title. His stunts and set pieces were (and still are) the stuff of comedy legend: writing his own glowing review and getting it printed in The Scotsman, driving, naked, and on a tractor,across the stage in Eric Bogosian’s gig and creating a strikingly accurate rendition of President Charles de Gaulle utilising only his own (impressive) genitalia and glasses, and of course, stealing Freddie Mercury’s birthday cake, an escapade immortalised in the title of his autobiography.
Too often we hear the phrase “we shall not see his like again”, but in Malcolm’s case, we haven’t, and, it seems ever more than unlikely that we will.
So it was a wonderful thing when John Fleming (with the blessing of Malcolm’s sister Claire) inaugurated The Malcolm Hardee Awards in 2005, to encourage the kind of comic, who is not interested in getting on Live at the Apollo, to let his weird and wonderful bits out for a runaround.
Fleming is – credit where credit is due – the main reason Hardee’s legacy of lunacy lives on. He co-wrote that autobiography with him and has a deep-seated appreciation and knowledge of the anarchic, the fundamentally odd and the borderline incomprehensible in comedy.
Little, over the years since the prize’s inauguration , has rivalled the Rabelaisian excesses of The Godfather himself, albeit anyone who watched Mark Dean Quinn eat several kilos of cheese each night at midnight will never for get that visceral sense of awe and horror. The main award has had its prescient moments … nominating Richard Gadd in 2015, Bo Burnham in 2010 and Elf Lyons in 2017 to say nothing of Phil Ellis three years before he became the darling of the Taskmaster audience.
Over the years, as it became obvious that creativity comes in many forms, and that we, the committee, should not be closed minded to the overtly commercial (as long as it is good enough) the Cunning Stunt Award and the Act Most Likely To Make a Million Quid were born. Bo Burnham, Trevor Noah and, again Phil Ellis were all recipients of the latter, and the former, over the years, has rewarded performers like Bob Slayer and Kunt and the Gang, who covered Edinburgh’s posters in penises, Matt Roper, who hacked into my emails to promote themselves, Mark Dean Quinn, who simply hi-jacked other performers’ stars, and Barry Ferns, who printed fake copies of Broadway Baby with glowing reviews of his own show.
Edinburgh is a combative arena, and if you are going to take the fight to the opposition, you may as well do it with cunning and humour.
Ina Fringe that is developing awards like a teenager develops acne, the Hardees are needed. We are the outsiders, we are the … what is that word …the alternative.
We are sorry that Phil Ellis has achieved such major mainstream fame.
At least the spectacularly, gloriously odd Paul Campbell, with his entrancing hour entirely on Somerfield Supermarkets is still comedically buried treasure. Award winning comedically buried treasure.
So if you are out and about this Fringe and your gob is smacked by some comedy crazy, do let the Hardee judges know … it’s what Malcolm would have wanted Oy Oy
