Taking tea with Bethany as she mimes projectile vomit for family, friends and neighbours

Published on Tuesday 4 August 2009 18:55

AMONG the many weird and wonderful spaces employed as Edinburgh Fringe venues, one of the strangest has to be my Glasgow flat.

In my living room, Bethany Black is performing her new comedy show, Love and a Colt 45, for me, ten friends and any neighbours who happen to glance over from the flats opposite, pausing to take in the sight of a goth miming projectile vomiting for a cluster of people perched on picnic chairs.

This isn't an administrative error, a bizarre hostage situation or a sneaky money-making scam from a moonlighting comedy critic. I appreciate that a last-minute Hoover doesn't constitute a proper health and safety check of a premises.

Rather, this is a chance for Black to test out new material and discover which bits work and which don't before an intimate crowd. We get to see the show early and for a nominal fee – a crisp bowl, filled with whatever people are willing to stump up at the end. There's no microphone, the lighting is minimal and my landlord has no idea this is happening, so keep it under your hat.

This time of year, when hundreds of comics are urgently seeking any kind of venue to preview in, my living room is as reasonable a place as any. Sandwiched in Black's diary between an afternoon gig for an Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous group and Greater Manchester Police's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Officers' annual diversity training meeting, tonight, she assures me, "doesn't feel that different to a Fringe show because my venue isn't that much bigger. And if everyone's facing the same way, you soon forget it's someone's flat."

There are precedents. Last year's if.comedy winner David O'Doherty plans to release a live DVD shot in his Dublin flat, while Arthur Smith's Balham Bash on Radio 4 was recorded with comics and musicians playing from various rooms of his house. All this month Holly Burn is inviting Fringe audiences into her Albany Street home to see her show. In a recession and with the festivals as expensive as ever, can you afford not to keep a comedian in the attic?

Black's previous show, Beth Becomes Her, is currently being developed for a BBC series. Speaking openly about her drink, drug and love addictions though, she remains a slightly edgy booking for an after-dinner soiree – a lesbian postoperative transsexual with more baggage than Heathrow, candidly discussing her botched suicide attempts and occasional flirtations with the law. All this I've gradually revealed to my girlfriend between setting up the gig and tonight. As host, I irrationally worry about the audience drinking in front of a reformed alcoholic. What if she tries to commit suicide again in our bathroom? That's always awkward.

Most of the audience eschew alcohol though and, thankfully, find Black to be their cup of tea too. As it's still daylight outside, it's slightly uncomfortable whenever she begins a routine by asking about our drug experiences or to recall our first booze-induced blackout. It's one thing to boisterously bellow this information to strangers from the back of a dark comedy club. It's another to pipe up about a lost weekend in Tijuana among people you've known for years, while they sip from your second finest china.

As a critic I usually make for the back of a room. But others' speed of thought ensures I'm right at the front, on my sofa. So I'm obviously drinking. But I really enjoy it. Following some early gags about the situation, Black settles easily into her anecdotal style. There are countless stories of her quirky family and relationships. Shame, romantic misadventure and forgiveness run throughout, but regrettably she withholds the helium balloon finale.

Seeing previews before they're fully-fledged shows is always instructive and often fascinating, especially when you can discuss them with the performer afterwards. In a relaxed, post-gig Q&A, we generally agree that any teething problems were largely structural. Black continues to lead such an eventful life that it's a challenge to assemble all the constituent anecdotes into a coherent hour, but she's virtually there. As she tells me a few days later, much as she likes it, the cute bit about her nephews needs to go. We structure-obsessed critics love hearing stuff like that.

One of the most humbling aspects of the experience is the feeling that, in a tiny way, we've helped shape this show with our enthusiastic laughter, polite chuckles and, occasionally, blank stares. As a comedy fan, I generally enjoy the company of comedians and find their insights into their industry compelling. As a critic, I've sometimes had to be brutal about these same comics' shows and I've lost track of how many times one has told me something in an interview that I wish they hadn't. Many stand-ups don't obey the same laws of discretion that the rest of us adhere to, often the reason they excel at their job.

Yet while I enjoy this tension that exists between comics and journalists, because I think it keeps the art form vital, it was nice to be on the same side for once, with Black and I both heavily invested in the evening's success. I would never have entertained at home again if she'd been rubbish, so there was plenty at stake.

&#149 Bethany Black – Love and a Colt 45 is at the Underbelly, Edinburgh, tomorrow until 30 August.