Ruth Wishart on Elvis McGonagall – the mobile shortbread tin of Scottish comedy

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And now for something completely different.

If I were to try and describe the life and times of Elvis McGonagall, who will flee the comparative safety of rural Gloucestershire this coming Saturday to make a state visit to Cove Burgh Hall, I’m not sure I could quite capture the full flavour of one of Scotland’s funniest exports.

So let’s hear from the tartan clad rapper his very self: “Stand up poet, armchair revolutionary and recumbent rocker Elvis is the sole resident of the Graceland Caravan Park, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where he scribbles verse while drinking malt whisky and listening to Johnny Cash.”

In fact, your man is rather more organised than the above might suggest, given that he has won both UK and World Slam titles, and brought his own show to the Edinburgh Fringe last summer.

He’s a regular at various festivals up and down the land, and counts Radio 4’s Saturday Live among his regular broadcasting gigs.

His stage ensemble features a somewhat lurid tartan jacket which, says this Dundonian former lawyer, explains his description by some reviewers as “a mobile shortbread tin”.

(Well, actually, he comes from Perth, rather than Dundee, but William Topaz McGonagall, Scotland’s worst poet, had better connections with the bigger city, so Elvis took a wee geographical liberty.)

I caught him at a lunchtime show at the Edinburgh Book Festival and was bowled over by how he knitted topical material into hilarious (and unsparing) verse knitted together by a string of self deprecating gags.

He is something of a master of unadulterated nonsense – as witness his assertion that his mother, Agnes McGonagall, had been a starstruck baggage handler at Prestwick when the other Elvis made a brief stopover.

“She was left with the memory of a lifetime,” he says.

“Nine months later, Elvis McGonagall was born on carousel B.

“Co-incidence? Not according to Big Aggie. Stuffing wee Elvis into a duffle bag, she set off in pursuit of Mr Presley and her American dream.

“The rest is histrionics.”

Aye, right.

When he lived in Dorset, Elvis compered and ran The Blue Suede Sporran Club, which attracted some seriously big comedy names – and whose title, says Elvis, was a kind of backhanded homage to the White Heather Club.

He also has a band, Elvis McGonagall and the Resurrectors. Not that he plays an instrument.

So he sings, I inquired? “Nah, I just shout a lot.”

Lots more highly entertaining gibberish in that vein on Saturday night from one man and his doggerel.

He comes among us at 8pm on Saturday, but there will be a bar from half past seven. A drink beforehand is probably advisable!