REVIEW – Devizes Arts Festival – Clive Anderson 14th June 2023 @ The Corn Exchange, Devizes

Andy Fawthrop

The Scottish Play

Devizes Arts Festival headed towards the end of its second week last night. And here was another highlight…..

Clive Anderson is pretty well known household name, being seen on TV and heard on radio as a presenter, writer and interviewer over the past 30 years. He’s an award-winner, a versatile comic writer and, an often overlooked feature, a barrister by training. He’s fronted his own TV and radio shows, and has been a celebrity guest on countless others.

Last night, in a fairly packed Corn Exchange, he brought his own show “Me, Macbeth and I” to the stage. Appearing for the first half in full “Scottish” regalia, his opening assertion was that Macbeth (sharp intake of breath from the luvvies in the audience), sorry “The Scottish Play” was the greatest play ever written, and certainly Shakespeare’s best drama. Using this, and his frequently referred-to Scottish ancestry, as a thin framework on which to hang the rest of the show, he set off in pursuit of….I’m not quite sure what.

We had some wonderful, although sometimes rambling, anecdotes from his career in showbiz, name-dropping with gay abandon (Cher, Sting, Robin Williams, Peter Cook, Mikhail Gorbachev to name but a few), although this was rarely gratuitous. Anderson has interviewed them all, and had some great back-stories to relate. He covered his early start in comedy (Cambridge Footlights and Comedy Store), his learning path in presenting live TV, and the vicissitudes of coping with sometimes unpredictable guests. He also shared a number of theatrical anecdotes, milked from “Loose Ends” with Ned Sherrin, and concluded an overlong first half with the results of his researches into the truth (or otherwise) of the bad luck stigma associated with 400 years of productions of Macbeth. This allowed him to mention Gielgud, Beerbohm, Olivier and Orson Welles, as if in passing.

The second half picked up where he’d left off, although the Scottish outfit had now been abandoned for a more conventional lounge suit. The style was still the same however – occasionally incoherent, repetitious, going off on tangents and losing his thread. However we always seemed to get back to the point, which left me wondering if this method of delivery was a reflection of his natural style, or a slightly nerves-driven affectation.

Whatever – it was mostly interesting and funny, with a few topical depth-charges casually dropped into the comedy waters (Gove, Rees-Mogg, Prince Andrew etc). There was a discourse on his own Scottish heritage and of Scottish national stereotypes. The final section allowed him to revisit great interview disasters of others (Parkinson and Rod Hull/ Emu, Russell Harty and Grace Jones) and of himself – the famous Bee Gees walk-off, Richard Branson and (for me the best) Bernard Manning and National Prune Week.

It was funny, but not hilarious. It was interesting and educational, but not gripping. The audience mostly seemed to love it, but I found it difficult to warm to the man somehow. His comedy is more intellectual than human/ emotional, so that might be it. Anyway – a good night out, and another success for Devizes Arts Festival.

The Devizes Arts Festival continues for three more days until Saturday 17th June.

Tickets can be booked at Devizes Books or online at www.devizesartsfestival.org.uk