Feature: CRAIG FERGUSON at The Southern Theatre

According to comedian Craig Ferguson, a knack for stand-up comedy is a lot like making pearls. Oysters and comedians take irritations and apply pressure to them to form jewels over time.

Ferguson will be bringing a host of his life experiences when the comedian visits Columbus 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Southern Theatre (21 E. Main Street in downtown Columbus).

“It wasn’t like I was working in the sheep mines of Scotland, and someone said, ‘Wait! That one over there is funny,’” the Glasgow native said in a telephone interview from Manhattan. “It’s more something that happens over time.
“I’ve always liked performing. I was a drummer for bands that were so bad that they would get laughed at, so maybe that’s where I got my start. There's a certain romance about doing stand-up. It’s a sink or swim type of thing. I'm kind of surprised I'm still doing it.”

Ferguson has a rich tapestry to draw from. He honed his craft in smoky, laughter-challenged “Chuckle Huts,” cut his television teeth as Nigel Wick, the quirky boss on THE Drew Carey SHOW (1996-2004), and then reached the ethereal heights of hosting “THE LATE, LATE SHOW WITH Craig Ferguson,” (2005-14). He’s written three books, hosted CELEBRITY NAME GAME, and became a successful voice actor, providing the dialogue for Bogger in HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, Lord Macintosh in BRAVE, and Owl in WINNEY THE POOH.

The Southern Theatre stopover will be one of three performances he has in the Buckeye State in a three-day span. After the Southern Theatre appearance, Ferguson will team up with Jay Leno, and Arsenio Hall for two performances of The Kings Of LATE NIGHT show at the Hard Rock Casino in Cincinnati on Sept. 1.

“Jay and I have been mates for years and we always talked about doing something like this,” Ferguson said. “Jay said to me (dropping into a pitch-perfect intonation of Leno’s voice), ‘I kind of wanted to do a family show.’ I told him, ‘I always do a family show, Jay. It’s just that my family is a little different from yours.’ I promised to do a show that his family wouldn’t be upset by.”

That fine line between being funny and being offensive is constantly shifting and changing shape, especially in comedy. Unlike some of his fellow members of the late night talk show fraternity, Ferguson said he tries to steer clear of incorporating his political views into his shows. It’s called “stand-up comedy,” not stand-out commentary.

Ferguson’s plumb line for humor is pretty simple: “If it makes me laugh, it will be funny when I’m performing it.”

“What I tend to do these days has zero politics in it,” Ferguson said. “About five or six years ago, I found myself getting irritated (with overly political comedians), even when I agreed with them.

“I want to create for myself, and by osmosis the audience, a space where you take all the things you’re frightened of or outraged about, and I’ll give an hour and a half break from it. I try and keep stuff absurd or personal or observational in a human rather than a political sense.”

Ferguson absorbed his sense of irreverent comedy by watching the absurdness of MONTY PYTHON. The BBC madcap circus of Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, and Terry Jones often rolled up the rules of comedy and stuck them into a paper shredder.

“People used to call the Pythons the Beatles of comedy,” he said with a laugh. “For me, they were more like the Sex Pistols. They had an anarchic wildness I had never seen on British television before.

“Eric Idle and I became friendly a few years ago. Eric made me a nice SPAMALOT King Arthur hat once. It's one of my greatest treasures.”

In one of the “golden ages” of late night television with David Letterman, Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and John Stewart and his Daily Show cohorts, all vying for screen time, Ferguson brought that sense of zaniness to the market. Ferguson used Sid the Rabbit, Geoff Peterson the Robot Skeleton, and Secretariat The Pantomime Horse as comedic foils. When he was studying to gain his U.S. citizenship, he campaigned and was granted honorary state citizenships from Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada,   New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming. He was even made an honorary admiral for landlocked Nebraska’s “Navy.”

While he could be silly, Ferguson could also encapsulate the seriousness of a moment. He talked about his battles with alcoholism and depression, the death of his parents, and Sept. 11. In the show’s irreverent style, an alligator puppet announced Ferguson had won a 2009 Peabody award for his interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

“I was a little unsure at first (about having Tutu on the show) but I met Father Tutu backstage beforehand and within five minutes of talking to him I was like ‘Oh no, this is going to be fine.’ He was just wonderful.

“While I was talking to him, I was aware to be very respectful. This wasn't someone who was a banana on a sitcom. This was a very important world figure and certain protocols would be in place. (Laughs) Needless to say, we didn't have the skeleton or the horse on that night.”

Few of his inner circle could have seen Ferguson becoming a celebrity or an award-winning comedian in the late 1980s. In fact, a few, including Ferguson himself, couldn’t picture the Scot making it to the millennium alive.

In his biography, BETWEEN THE BRIDGE AND THE RIVER, Ferguson wrote about a series of events that led him to contemplate suicide by jumping off the Tower Bridge on Christmas Day. On the way there, he stopped to have one last drink and, in the course of drinking, Ferguson forgot about what he was going to do.

Sober since 1993, Ferguson said it may have been alcohol that kept him alive.

Asked about the interesting dichotomy of comedians and depression, Ferguson said those who are funny don’t struggle any more than anyone else.

“I think (having a dark side) is true with just being a human being,” he said. “Everyone has struggles and everyone deals with it a little differently. The comedians I know might have that same ‘existential despair.’

“You know that’s the real puzzle box of addiction -- the thing that's destroying me is the only thing that makes me feel OK. I knew enough to think this is a very odd thing and I should probably talk to someone about this because I don't think this is normal. The confusing and dangerous thing about it is what was destroying me resulted in saving me. It was a very, very odd time.”

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