LET'S LOSE THE LUVVIES AND PUT HOMELESS CENTRE STAGE

THE city is dressed up and wonderfully bedecked for a festival, the lights are strung around the trees and the signs are erected on most venues.

Beneath the monuments and fancy turrets of Edinburgh, the homeless sit in the cold and wait for a passing tourist to throw a coin their way.

The Fringe can't be much fun for the local bedraggled pavement pedlars; after all, there are an estimated 18,626 performers in over 2,050 shows begging for attention and they have better patter than the poor and are more rigorously rehearsed. The performers have stars on their literature, whereas the poor have black marks against their characters and, more than often, police records for vagrancy.

There is no such thing as homelessness in the theatre world; you are in-between jobs and couches.

On the Meadows, the drunken sunshine boys and girls, their faces brown and weathered, gnarled hands gripping a Buckfast bottle, watch some theatre group play a game of cricket.

'The Improvising Shakespearean Theatre Group' they were called. I know because I asked the gathered drunks on the bench.

“Bob, those guys have brought cricket outfits so they must be serious about the game,” one wee drunk man shouted as his skinny, eager dog stole the cricket ball and made off towards the main street.

The cricket team stood stock still, not knowing what to do.

“Improvise it mate!” shouted Bob, his tatty tee shirt flapping in the wind as he jumped about laughing.

I laughed as well. That's comedy in its purest!

I often wonder what visitors to the city make of our wondrous drunken philistines, the mad women and men on the kerbsides that look in disgust and awe at the carefully made Medieval Monks in costumes and the troops of men in purple tights, velvet waistcoats and ruff collars who beg the Fringe-going crowds to come see their show.

The homeless people on the streets of Edinburgh are the first thing the visitors see when they step off the trains and buses. The disenfranchised are the front-of-house staff for this theatrical city. They are the meeters and greeters of Auld Reekie. But they never see the shows.

The homeless are the very people who would benefit from hearing a politically-charged comedy show with weighty opinion. Yet the very people who should hear it… don't.

They are left outside in the cold; they don't understand the festival; they aren't included; and they really should be.

Imagine talking to the actual people who are affected by the politics of our time. Words coming out of the mouths of the very privileged to the ears of the very poor. It would be awesome and truly worthwhile. How many homeless benefit gigs have their beneficiaries in the audience?

The homeless are more 'street' than all the 'edgy' comics at the Fringe and by the sheer nature of their existence they possess a wicked sense of humour. Try your shock tactics in front of these people and watch who really gets the joke!

Ricky Gervais' famous joke that goes: “Not all Scots are alcoholics - Some of them are smack heads,” would have a better hit rate if the heroin addicts were at his gigs instead of sitting on the cobbles outside as the affluent punters get to giggle in the good seats.

My dream would be that all comedy and theatre critics were sacked one year and the homeless, the drunks, the drug addicts and the wandering poor were allowed to review the shows.

Imagine the sheer amount of honesty that would hit the page. Reviews would no longer reflect the monotonous luvvies who are forever supporting that clutch of comedians who are generally known as 'the Emperors who have no clothes'.

The naked would be called such and those dull hack comics would be pilloried by the Mad Catwoman of Morningside. The overly ham acting of the privileged theatre troop would get no stars and a big thumbs down for assuming they are the intelligentsia.

The Mad Catwoman has no agenda to please the poncey promoter. She would really write the truth.

People who have no real knowledge or opinion of comedy and theatre are more likely to be bluntly honest about the impact it has on them.

It's a shocking fact that Edinburgh can manage to eke out yet another venue for August, get it health and safety ready, yet they cannot find a house for their homeless.

So at least give them a job for August.

TORONTO SAVES THE DAY FOR BAGHDAD

THE reformed Spice Girls had a website that asked their fans which city they should bring their screeching sing-a-long songs to and the majority of so called "fans" suggested they take their show to Baghdad!

But it seems the website accrued tons of votes from North America and the Canadians saved the day. The skinny bunch will do their gig in Toronto.

Personally I would have loved them to go to Baghdad.

Though maybe even I wouldn't subject those poor war-torn people in Iraq to such a torture - surely that would be an infringement of the Geneva Convention? Then again, the West has often ignored such rules when dealing with the East.

I am sure if the Spicey quintet hit the stage in downtown Baghdad and belted out "Tell me what you want, what you really, really want" the crowds would call out en masse: "We want our country back! - Zig-a-zig, ah!"

OUR PARENTS HAVE A LOT TO ANSWER FOR

LAST week, in my nightly stand-up show at the Pleasance in Edinburgh, I sang this great Glasgow classic:

Last night there was murder in the chip shop.
A wee dog stole a haddy bone.
A big dog tried to take it off it,
So I hit it with a cold tatty scone.

I ran to my Aunty Nellie,
My aunty Nellie wasn't in.
I peeped through a hole in the window
And shouted "Aunty Nellie are you in?"

Her teeth were lying on the table,
Her hair was hanging on a peg.
I nearly burst my sides with laughing
When I saw her screwing off her wooden leg.

Then I realised our parents taught us a song that started with murder, fish-eating dogs that are violent, there is a child that does some voyeurism and the last verse deals with laughing at disabled people.

A HERO IN OUR MIDST

I have an amazing exclusive guest on my chat show on 23 August. John Smeaton is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe to do a one-off special with me in the hot seat at The Green Room!

I am so excited. There is hardly a comic in Edinburgh who hasn't got some material about the terror attack on Glasgow Airport and the man himself will be in the city.

My chat show got a five-star review last week and John is looking forward to his first Festival experience and my show is the only one he will be appearing in at Edinburgh.

I have other exciting guests coming up. This week, there's the odd pairing of Scotland's anarchic Phil Kay with England's bespectacled poet John Hegley; Bullseye legend Jim Bowen; brave anti-war campaigner Rose Gentle; hot totty tanned Tommy Sheridan; and my old mate comic Mick Miller.