Why Rosco McClelland is risking death by heart failure to perform at the Fringe: 'people may find it bizarre'
Comedian Rosco McClelland on how a rare heart condition has made performing at the Edinburgh Fringe a life-threatening endeavour
As a stand-up comedian, it feels like my sole job is to make people laugh. I travel around the country from town to town most weekends, and that's exactly what I do. Usually, the topics I poke fun at are very basic: the weather, politics, and even myself. But when the Edinburgh Fringe comes to town everything changes. You are afforded the space to breathe as an artist, which I find incredibly freeing. From September till June I assume the role of Roland the Farter, a Medieval flatulist who performed once a year in the court of King Henry II. Each year he was obliged to perform "Unum saltum et siffletum et unum bumbulum" (one jump and whistle and one fart). Sometimes when I make a stag do laugh on a Saturday night just to appease them, I feel like Roland. It's probably not exactly what he wanted to do, but it pays the bills.
This year in Edinburgh I'm performing a brand new show called Sudden Death. The through line of the show centres around a heart condition I was born with called Long QT Syndrome. Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a heart rhythm disorder that causes fast, chaotic heartbeats. The irregular heartbeats can be life-threatening. It's a rare condition that affects up to one in two thousand people (lucky me). There are many things which could cause my heart to enter an arrhythmia, but the main factors are anxiety, stress, and physical exertion. Which makes the Edinburgh Fringe technically a life-threatening endeavour for me.
If you were to ask anyone who knows me to describe my onstage performance style I'm sure that nine times out of ten they would mention the words chaotic or fast. It's very much a mirror image to how I've lived my life so far. I love listening to fast punk music and I drive in the outside lane. I'm 35 years old now, and the median life expectancy of men with LQTS is 32. The clock is ticking, and I don't have time to slow down.
Some people may find it bizarre that I don't follow the rules, or that I seem to be playing chicken with my own existence. I understand that there are people who had LQTS and didn't get the chance to be diagnosed before their lives were sadly cut short. I do not mean to sound flippant or braggadocious; I understand that I am very privileged to still be here to write this piece. But the way I perform my style of comedy is exactly the same as the way I live my life. I think of it as a tight rope walk: the higher the rope the greater the risk, the greater the risk the greater the reward. I envy my peers who can sit down and sink into their sets, who can write carefully crafted routines and then perform them methodically onstage. I wish I could do that but, like I say, I simply don't have the time.
In comedy, having a bad gig is often referred to as “dying on stage”. It's something that comics fear, no matter how good you are, or how well you've prepared. Every now and then it just seems to happen. Nobody is immune to a bad one now and again, but the trick is how you deal with them when they do inevitably happen. The real test of your skill lies therein. I used to be a plumber before I ventured into the arts and I feel like the foundation of being a good plumber is the same as being a good comedian. Sometimes things do go wrong, and it's all about your ability to stay calm and find a solution when water is cascading down the walls.
The idea of dying, whether it be onstage or in my actual life, doesn't scare me. I've accepted it as an inevitable consequence of the way I choose to go about my work. In recent years it has made me braver, if anything. I find I care less about what audiences might think of the topics I mine for comedic material. And through that, my convictions have become emboldened. Whether it's using my voice to announce my support for my trans brothers and sisters, or voicing my disgust at the continued rise of rightwing ideology, I rarely sit on the fence any more. I'll plant my flag down firmly. What's the worst they could do? Kill me? Not if I get me first! That being said, bills do need to be paid and people deserve to laugh. So every now and then I will perform one jump, one whistle, and one fart.
Rosco McLelland: Sudden Death, Monkey Barrel Comedy, 9pm, until 25 August
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