Edinburgh Festival '99: Diary

ELATED AT my arrival in Edinburgh, I mounted my bike, snapped my chain and knocked myself out. I awoke to see Satan and his doggish helpers yapping in my face. I screamed and most of them ran away. The ambulance man promised he'd convey my apologies to Satan.

Anyway, that night we performed Trevor Lock's new play, Friday Night at the End of the World. As Tuesday approached, however, my thoughts returned to So You Think You're Funny, Channel 4's dauntingly titled new comedy competition. It has pushed a crop of fast-trackers up the ladder to stardom. I decided to enter.

Lock shoe-horned me on stage for a stand-up at his club, "Kool Eddy's". I enjoyed it in a sweaty sort of way, and then avoided him until he'd forgotten about me. By the time he remembered, it was competition time.

To be fair, the staff did a grand job of reducing the smell of frightened bird before competitors walked on stage to make or break their careers. No pressure then.

Sometimes I miss my barristering career: two years of schmoozing child molesters with cigarettes so they didn't switch firms. Don't get me wrong, it's the wittiest job the UK's got to offer. But a car accident persuaded me life's too short. I reckon I'd had as much experience in that brief spell as I wanted without a bucket of cash, a BMW and a wife called Helen.

Humphrey Douglas appears nightly at 5pm in `Friday Night at the End of the World' at the Gilded Balloon, Venue 26 until 30 Aug. The final of `So You Think You're Funny' is on Channel 4, 29 Aug