Jonathan Trew: A veritable mob of clowns is heading to Scotland next week

Without being discourteous (no mention of words such as infestation), what’s the collective noun for a group of comedians? A gaggle, a giggle, a shower?

Whatever the correct word is, a veritable mob of clowns is heading to Scotland this weekend and they neatly illustrate the breadth of the current comedy scene.

In the deep blue corner, we have Roy Chubby Brown and in the slightly less blue corner, we have Freddie “I’m Not a Rodent Muncher” Starr. Brown plays the Alhambra in Dunfermline tonight while Starr hits the SECC tomorrow. Both old-school entertainers are adept at winding up liberal sensibilities.

In the red corner, we have wild, Canadian, ex-pat Tom Stade and San Franciscan Margaret Cho, who has been called the Patron Saint of Outsiders. Both are capable of provoking just as much outraged spluttering as Brown and Starr albeit by coming from an almost diametrically opposed standpoint. Stade plays the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy tonight. Cho is at The Stand in Glasgow on Sunday and Monday nights.

Sticking with Glasgow, there will be a hip-hop slam battle in Pivo Pivo on Waterloo Street tonight. Assorted luminaries of Scotland’s hip-hop scene such as Mr Jinx, Loki and The Being will be taking to the mic and trying to outdo each other with their rhyming. The idea of a rap battle may be hard to understand, but try thinking of it as being like Prime Minister’s Questions but with better thought-out policies; a firmer grasp of the potential of iambic pentameters and considerably cooler threads.

Moving to the other side of the country, the Scottish International Storytelling Festival gets underway this weekend. This year’s festival is called Island Odyssey: Scotland and Old Europe. It examines the ways in which Greek and Roman myths have traded themes with the sagas of the Celts.

Plenty of events stand out from this weekend’s programme. This afternoon, the poems of the Orcadian George Mackay Brown are up for discussion at the Scottish Poetry Library. Also this afternoon, the Facing the Sea gallery at the newly revamped National Museum of Scotland will play host to tales from Orkney, Shetland and the Pacific Islands.

The evening programme looks just as lively. The series of Island Nights events mix storytelling and music. Pirates, fishermen, raiders and entire bestiaries of fantastical sea creatures promise to put in an appearance.

www.chubbybrown.biz; www.secc.co.uk; www.tomstade.co.uk; www.glasgay.co.uk; www.scottishstorytellingcentre.co.uk