It seems that you can teach an old dog new tricks after all - Fiona Duff
I have a friend in her 60s who decided she wanted to write a musical. She is one of these people who can do lots of things pretty well. So she took herself off to some classes, and lo and behold she was told that she was rather good. The musical seems to be on the back burner, but the songs keep coming.Another friend of about the same age was, in her youth, an actress. Whilst she has not trodden the boards any time recently, she reckons that she still has a last hurrah. Mainly playing batty old women is what she has in mind – and somehow I can see that it might just happen.But beating them all is a man called Jeff Stark. He is originally from Stirling but after literally hitch-hiking to London when he was 17 he found himself top of the tree in the advertising world. You don’t get more punchy than being creative director of Saatchi and Saatchi in the 1980s.Now retired Jeff says that found himself one day in Marks and Spencer eyeing up some beige cardigans. After giving himself a metaphorical slap across the face, he then went to a pub that held comedy nights and started doing the open mic spots – very often winning the audience vote. I’ve seen some clips on YouTube and he is funny, there’s no doubt about that.So at the grand old age of 81 he is packing his bags right now and heading off to make his Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut. He says he knows that he will probably make a whopping loss as he is playing a small venue and the rent for flats in Edinburgh has gone through the roof.
But what he’s really worried about is playing to empty rooms (he obviously hadn’t heard about that girl crying last year because no-one had turned up to her show and she made headlines all over the place).I shall be going so that night won’t be empty, and I reckon there will be lots of other people making their way to Greenside on George Street to join me. In the meantime I am off to teach Bruce the spaniel how to roll over.