Craig Ferguson: Scottish Player

Everybody has their web diversion - you know, that corner that keeps you from building empires and meeting deadlines - and this is mine, from my perch in Glasgow: The 'comedy' download page of CBS's Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. There are many reasons why I've been watching this archive over the last few months...

1) I once did a political cabaret night with Craig, when I was in an aspiring pop band and he was an outrageous satirist called Bing Hitler. in the Sub Club in Glasgow in 1986. Backstage, he was wired to the moon, but extremely intelligent and present.

2) His show - which was an unlikely event in the first place: a sub-Billy-Connoly-esque Scot in America taking on the mantle of Johnny Carson and Steve Allen - has turned into a triumph, at least in terms of ratings.

3) And this is because of his nightly performance, which is the most remarkable spectacle of a Scottish working-class chancer, who also happens to be an inveterate Americanophile, pulling it off big time.

It's the way he uses his wild past as a driven Scottish punk comic as a measure of what it is to be in America, at the heart of Hollywood. The strapline is almost, 'Oh lord, make me a good Scottish Calvinist - but not yet'. I'm not surprised that the US press is beginning to pick up on what he's doing - both the LA Times and the Hollywood Reporter have picked up on his opening monologues in particular. This quote from the HR is very familiar (and very Connolly-esque):

"There's something I believe wholeheartedly: Cynicism is the true refuge of the pseudo-intellectual," Craig Ferguson says with conviction, leaning back in a chair with work boot-shod feet propped up on the desk in his office at CBS Television City. "Cynicism is easy. Joy is an extremely advanced spiritual and intellectual tenet."

If you're prickly about Scottishness, don't watch. He portrays 'the old country' as a freezing, harsh pit of violence and retrogression. (Certainly, from his background, that's recognisable). But like all bruised patriots, he can't - and wouldn't want to - extricate it from his life. Though his mantra, after some particularly bad joke involving sheep noises and the Scottish inability to recognise the sound of orgasm, is "I can never go back, you know..."

But as he's taking American citizenship in any case, doesn't sound like he needs to come back. At the moment, he's a Scot playing on the biggest stage he can get. Punk rock stuffed - and yes, almost entirely purified, but not completely - into a talk-show suit. However long it lasts for him, it's a lot of fun to watch. McPlay Ethic embodied.