London,

Malcolm Mclaren

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Anarchy-influenced lecture from Malcolm Mclaren

 

Edinburgh Comedy: In a career that has taken frequent colourful turns, doing an Edinburgh stand-up show would not seem far-fetched for Malcolm McLaren. Instead, however, the punk-rock svengali, a fashionably late addition to the Fringe line-up, delivered more of an anarchy-influenced Royal Institution Christmas Lecture than a comedy routine.

Plenty of lines: Malcolm McLaren

There were, though, plenty of pithy lines. The theme of his playful monologue was loosely that history is there to be messed with. More precisely, it was a chance to hammer home his life story. Some of it was over-familiar but most of it was thoroughly entertaining.

After a hesitant start as he talked about being born in the post-Second World War rubble, momentum gathered as he recalled being brought up by his formidable grandmother, who advised him that “to be bad was good, to be good was absolutely boring”. After school he became a wine-taster, painting a florid verbal picture of red-nosed ex-colonels sipping beaujolais and announcing it had “too much fat under the arm”.

From there it was art school, meeting Vivienne Westwood, portrayed as a Coronation Street motormouth, and making her pregnant. Westwood, he claimed, spent the abortion money on a cashmere twin-set. Eventually they set up shop in Chelsea’s King’s Road and the Sex Pistols were spat out. There is a lovely description of latterday butter salesman John Lydon as a “teenage Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

The flame-haired anecdotalist is very watchable — half cunning fox, half Mick Hucknall’s dad. He does have a tendency to self-mythologise, revelling in his hatred of the Establishment while boasting that he turned Britain into today’s corporate theme park and helped spawn Tony Blair (“the first Karaoke Prime Minister”). But that added to this show’s amiable perversity. Rather good, certainly not absolutely boring.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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