Fifty Shades of Clair.
Fifty Shades of Smay. 4 Fifers for a Fiver. Jimmy Carr. Al Murray. Nina Conti. Jon Ronson. John Hegley. Rich Hall. Craig Hill. Desk Clarke. Dorothy Paul. Hardeep Singh Kohli. Comedy seems to be the new rock and roll, and it's a genre in which Glasgow has cleaned up - not only in the talent it nurtures and attracts, but also in the number and variety of its venues.
The city's International Comedy Festival (GICF), the biggest of its kind in Europe, this year has almost 105,000 tickets for around 400 shows taking place at a record 46 venues all over the city. These include the Barmulloch Community Centre, Drygate Brewery, Govanhill Baths, Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre, West Brewery, and the St Enoch's Underground station. The mind boggles at the sheer comic potential of any one of these. Performing outwith the confines of the traditional theatre building has its advantages for the would-be maverick.
A couple of these venues are of particular interest, because they emphasis Glasgow's magnificent built legacy as well as its historic affinity with its local people.
The Govanhill Baths building is a B-listed substantial Edwardian Baths and Wash House (aka steamie) which opened in 1916 in one of the city's most deprived areas. In a severely neglected state, it was closed in 2001 to strong opposition to the local community and an action group, Save Our Pool, was formed in the forlorn hope its closure could be stopped. But close it did; the water was finally emptied from its pool. Which is a shame, since it's the only original, substantially unaltered public baths in the city still in use, making them rare and important: Edinburgh still have five remaining public baths, and Dundee has one, while Glasgow has closed all of its examples. The Govanhill Community Trust hopes to return it to community use and the first phase of fundraising, which may see the small pool re-open, is said to be well advanced. Meanwhile a series of innovative events like choir, dance and theatre performances, art installations and a pop-up restaurant have taken place in its empty pool - the better to emphasise local people's continuing engagement with the space.
The Britannia Panoptican, the oldest surviving music hall in the world, situated in the Trongate area of Glasgow city centre, is another echo of Glasgow's past. Built in the 1850s when Glasgow was the second city of the British Empire it's where Stan Laurel made his fumbling début, Sir Harry Lauder dodged a barrage of well-aimed rivets and where Cary Grant (as Archie Leach) showed off his acrobatic skills, according to historian Judith Bower.
Which just goes to show when it comes to comedy, the venue's the thing.
�¢ The Glasgow International Comedy Festival runs from March 12-19, 2015. glasgowcomedyfestival.com
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