Here comes . . Johnny!

As always, Johnny McKnight whooshes into the room, in this instance the Tron Theatre dressing room where his Miracle On 34 Parnie Street is sending audiences home with sides so sore they feel an appendix has been removed. Not content with parodying a film classic, McKnight??s department store Santa is in fact Kristine Kringle, replete with Dolly Parton top and Kim Kardashian bottom. ??Once I had the thought ??Santa??s a wummin!?? I knew exactly where to go with the script,?? he says in excited voice.

McKnight does Excited often, and Enthusiastic. But that??s not why he merits grammatical hyperbole. It??s partly because the writer/director/actor is an art house theatre legend, with panto successes at the likes of the MacRobert Centre in Stirling, five star-reviews for NTS-backed comedies such as Little Johnny??s Big Gay Wedding and Oran Mor lunchtime drama.

It??s also because Johnny McKnight??s work is daring - and deliciously close to dangerous, such as his controversial relationship/sex comedy Wendy Hoose. (A play fortunate enough to achieve both critical acclaim and audience walk outs - great for column inches.)

However more questions follow the man around than the Pied Piper??s kids. What is there about McKnight that gives him a comedy edge? How can he write so well for women? Why is it that despite being courted by the major theatres of Pantoland, his creative backside remains in the relative anonymity of 200 seaters?

How does he get away with speaking Ardrossan in a theatre world that still sticks to RP like Ant to Dec? And why did it take so long for him to realise he was gay, given he once wore Kylie sweatbands to school?

McKnight tells a 20 year-old story which offers some clue, of a time when 17 year-old Johnny was set to attend his first Law lecture at Strathclyde University.

??The night before was my papa??s funeral,?? he recalls. And what that means in my family is you get absolutely steamin??. But the next day, I got off the train in Glasgow and a bee chased me. Now, I hate bees so I ran away, but I fell, badly. When I got to the lecture, five minutes late, and wearing a wee backpack, three hundred people stopped to stare at me. And I realised I??d taken the knees out of baith my trouser legs, the blood was pouring and there were scratches on my arms.?? He adds, pausing for effect; ??They all thought I looked like a total hing-oot.??

Couldn??t he have ignored the sneers and carried on? ??No,?? he says, emphatically. ??Years ago, I??d have said I left Law because it was boring. But if I??m being honest, it??s because I was really made aware of being working class, that no one else spoke like me and I was a total outsider.

??It made me really angry because I went into Law thinking it was about fighting for the underdog. Not a chance! Law is about money, status and technicality rather than fairness. I got a sense of this really quickly when I looked around the lecture theatre on the first day and it was full of seventeen year-olds with briefcases.?? His voices rises in mock horror. ??Briefcases!??

McKnight had grown up playing the role of Outsider. Studying Law and having girlfriends was an attempt to conform. But he reveals he saw no other choice. ??As a teenager, I took the train every week to attend youth theatre in Glasgow, but never thought performance could become a career. Don??t get me wrong; I was encouraged to go to drama school. But I couldn??t see how I would fit it. There was nobody, I reckoned, who spoke like me. I was too camp, my voice too high-pitched and I never changed my accent.??

McKnight in conversation is a delight, part Kenneth Williams wicked and Frankie Howerd clever. Didn??t he take a cue from the hugely successful camp icons he??d seen on TV?

??Well, the added problem was I didn??t realise I was gay. This didn??t dawn until I was twenty four. At all. Everyone else thought I was gay, but not me. I was way late to the club. You see, back in Ardrossan I never heard of a single person being gay. I used to watch Queer as Folk on TV and wore Kylie Minogue sweatbands to school. And my audition piece for drama school was the drag queen speech from A Chorus Line. So there had been clues along the way. But I just thought; ??I??m totally camp - and whit??? Being gay never occurred to me. So I didn??t see myself as a Frankie Howerd.??

Aged 24, the penny dropped. Or rather a huge bag of change hit him on the head. (??After a drama school night out with a lot of drink I woke up a changed man,?? he says, smiling in recollection.) His personal path was now determined but past experience had informed the professional character; his was a dissident voice, someone looking in, a social commentator with a sting in his tail.

But McKnight??s voice took a while to develop. After the ??hing-oot?? left the world of leather and chrome utility cases he packed shelves in Safeway, and had evening fun in am-dram before working up the nerve to go to drama college.

On graduating, the highly independent McKnight, formed his own theatre company, Random Accomplice, with Julie Brown, creating his own work, writing his own plays. He??s never, ever been employed.

??When I started working at MacBob I got used to doing my own thing,?? he recalls. ??And that suited because maybe I??m a control freak. But it??s also to do with ethos. I don??t think, for example, the big theatres such as the King??s would do Miracle on 34th Street. With a female Santa? I doubt it. But I really love the idea of women being allowed to be funny on stage, which the big pantos don??t always allow for.??

His voice becomes animated; ??Last year we had five women in the panto. Scotland has such fantastic female talent (he rattles off a list of highly impressive names) and a lot of the big panto vehicles just don??t service them.??

Perhaps Johnny McKnight is naturally inclined to be subversive. Perhaps it??s because society demanded he conform, and when he couldn??t it pushed him to the margins. Regardless, his view gives him a great comedic perspective. And his closeness to female actress pals certainly helps him write for them.

Yet, he reveals other contributing characteristics which perhaps explain his box office success; he??s a walking contradiction, a natural worrier and workaholic ?? yet someone who isn??t chained to ambition? ??Maybe,?? he says, smiling of the theory, ??but part of the reason I don??t have a game plan is because I get to continually surprise myself.??

And audiences, as was the case with Wendy Hoose, in which a young, sexually frustrated female invites a partner she??s just met on-line back to her flat. She??s beneath the duvet looking hot, but neither he ?? nor the audience ?? know the woman has no legs. Comedy as black as the corridors of Hades ensues.

??I wanted Amy Conachan on stage because she??s really sexy,?? he says of the young actress. ??I didn??t want her to be the victim. And the play worked really well, although when we did it in London this year people got up and left as soon as the vibrator came out.??

He adds, with a wicked grin; ??In the post-show discussion I told the audience we??d played in theatres such as Perth and no one left. So much for the liberal South Bank! But for me, it??s not about message theatre. I still want folk to have a good night out. So you drip feed in the information.??

Does he worry he??s as good as his next play (he??ll appear in the Tron in the New Year with And The Beat Goes on, playing the male half of a Sonny and Cher tribute act)?

??A?? dae panic at times,?? he says, grinning; ??I??m thirty seven without a career plan. But the way I deal with it is by accepting none of us really knows what??s around the corner. Take my daddy, for example. I watched him train to be a mechanical fitter then train to go on the rigs, but then he got diabetes and had to use needles. Then he retrained as a welder, then retrained again. I??m left with the feeling we just need to keep adapting.??

Johnny McKnight is a Gloria Gaynor mission statement. He will survive, because he??s his own man. But he should be on the biggest stage. He should also be on television, the new Graham Norton. Whatever happens, he??s a man who will never, ever, own a briefcase.

??I would worry if I didn??t enjoy what I was doing,?? he says, smiling. ??But the truth is having found this life, I love it.??