Scots comedian Iain Stirling on enduring love of stand-up, Love Island memories and his love of Oor Wullie

Comedian Iain Stirling on his enduring passion for stand-up, suddenly being recognised and his love of Sunday Post favourite Oor Wullie.

Is stand-up your first love?

I’d be doing it even if I wasn’t a professional and was doing it in rooms of pubs, I just love stand-up and always have done. I feel fortunate I started 15 years ago, just before the big wave where it was seen as a shorthand way to get to television.

There’s also a working-class part of me which was always told me to get a trade. My trade’s stand-up, weirdly. Telly and all that is amazing and I’m so fortunate. But the tide can change at any time.

With stand-up, if you go to the Paisley Town Hall and you’re really funny for an hour and a half, you can go back next year and people will come again.

Growing up in Edinburgh, how influential was the Fringe?

I was really Edinburgh back in the day. I sounded like Gary, Tank Commander but I’ve had that bashed out of me by London a little bit!

If it wasn’t for the Fringe, I wouldn’t be doing this. It’s why the council and everyone else need to make it accessible to working-class people and lower-income families.

At school, I thought theatre was just posh English people in ruffles doing Shakespeare, and it wasn’t for me. Then I went to the Fringe and saw people like me on stage. I started gigging with Scottish acts like Mark Nelson, Scott Agnew and Susan Calman. It was like I’d found my tribe.

I was 16 when I did a sketch show in a venue on the Royal Mile with my mate. The sketches would be about a minute long and the blackout to get our props would be three minutes!

We’d only seen Little Britain, so we thought every character had to be in full gear. I got the bug from there.

You couldn’t do that now. I don’t know the solution, but there needs to be one. You need to go into where I grew up, schools like Gracemount, Liberton, Portobello, and encourage them to give it a go, to sing and dance, do stand up…

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Through Love Island, how have you found becoming a well-known face – or indeed voice?

It’s weird. It means I get to perform to more people, which is nice. Generally speaking, people are really lovely. It’s quite good doing voiceover because as long as I don’t say anything I’m normally all right. In Edinburgh, I’m more likely to get recognised from going to school with someone’s brother!

What are your memories of the golden age of the show around the 2018 World Cup?

One of the happiest days, no exaggeration, of my professional life was the night Croatia beat England. We filmed out in Spain and I used to go out every year before I had a family.

We were in this resort where there was just me and all these German tourists just annoying all the English Love Island staff.

I was seeing all these videos of Love Island screens in the corner of the pub while the football was on. I genuinely felt like I was living in a simulation.

I’m in Spain drinking beers with these German pensioners dancing about because England are out and the show’s just become this cultural artefact.

You’ve done gigs in the US off the back of it?

Love Island USA had that sort of year. I think it was the most downloaded show in America last year. Americans, as always, four or five years behind the Brits when it comes to trends!

My wife Laura (Whitmore) was working at New York Fashion Week so we got a little apartment there, the only place more expensive than Edinburgh during the festival!

I did all the clubs and a couple of shows. Alec Baldwin came to one, it was crazy.

How excited are you to be taking your tour for a second round?

This is like a little bonus. I’m getting to go to a bunch of places I might not normally go to. On these tours, you get Glasgow, Edinburgh and maybe Dundee or Aberdeen but not much else.

The fact that I’ve never done Stirling, as a fan of wordplay, feels very wasteful! One of my good friends is from Grangemouth – it’s just really fun doing these places. I get on a train there rather than them having to come to Glasgow or Edinburgh, which I feel they have to do a lot.

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Has breaking into mainstream changed your comedy?

My outlook’s changed, but what I actually do is the same. When I was younger, stand-up was all that mattered. I could live in a bedsit in London sleeping on the roof of my wardrobe in a makeshift bed. The gigs were going good so I didn’t care.

Now I don’t need the gig to go any particular way, which is really freeing. At the same time, as a dad I’m aware of the logistical nightmare of going to things.

I feel a bigger obligation to give people a good night. I’m much more like: ‘Right, let’s all have a great time because you’ve booked babysitters.’

How much have you enjoyed doing the podcast with Laura?

We were never going to do that sort couple thing, it’s not really us and also it’s been done so well by so many other people.

In a relationship you just find that thing that you’re both willing to watch. As much as I would have loved her to watch Hibs beat Celtic, it’s just not going to happen.

True crime’s become this happy middle ground. There was never a plan for it to become a thing that we did, we just gave it a go and people really liked it and we really enjoy doing it.

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You’re a big fan of Oor Wullie?

I’m sitting in front of an Oor Wullie artwork by Sleek. It’s got loads of funny little tags that are really unique to me. I grew up on Dennis the Menace and Oor Wullie. I’m still obsessed with comics – I’ve never really grown out of it.

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Iain Stirling brings Relevant to Paisley, Stirling and Grangemouth, April 3-5. Visit iaindoesjokes.com