Comedian Fred MacAulay picks out his ten best memories from three decades of laughter

Fred MacAulay is marking 30 years in comedy (Andrew Cawley / DC Thomson)

NEXT Saturday marks 30 years since Fred MacAulay first stood on a stage and told a joke.

He’d put his name down for the So You Think You’re Funny competition at the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow and, although he wasn’t placed, it did give him the stand-up comedy bug.

Not only did he go on to become one of Scotland’s favourite comedians, he has also hosted a long-running radio show and become a fixture on our TV screens.

Currently out on his 30 Years On tour, Fred told iN10 his 10 favourite career memories.

October 22, 1988

My first paid gig!

After trying out at The Mayfest So You Think You’re Funny competition, a few of us got the chance to do our five-minute sets at an open spot (unpaid) in a pub in Paisley run by Piero Pieracini.

He transformed one of the rooms in the pub into “The Joke Box” and my try-out gig had gone quite well, so he actually booked me.

This was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me.

The date coincided with Aileen (aka my wife, also aka Mrs Fred) and I attending a sportsman’s ball in Glasgow, so I ducked out of that, got a taxi to Paisley and took to the stage in my borrowed dinner suit.

The audience must have thought I was trying out for television.

Anyway, it went well and I earned £20!

February 1, 1993

This was my first day as a full-time comedian.

I’d tendered my resignation in 1990 and had intended to leave my employment as a company accountant and secretary at the end of January 1991, but stayed on for two years on a consultancy basis.

This was a massive step. We now had three children, and had taken the decision that Aileen wouldn’t go back to work since I’d be on the road a lot and we had no idea how much income I’d earn.

But we both knew I had to give it a shot and it looked as though things were going well.

Only time would tell…

February-May, 1995

The MacAulays head to Australia!

I’d had a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe and was asked to go to Australia for six weeks to perform at The Last Laugh in Melbourne.

We discussed taking the children out of their classes with the school and got the green light, so off we went.

And 1995 is remembered as the year we had two summers.

The weather in Melbourne was fantastic, the gigs went well, the kids were in the pool every day and we were swimming like fish by the end of our stay.

It was very, very tempting to stay on and see what life would be like.

But we’re home birds really and after a holiday at the end of my stint (sharing the show with Ardal O’Hanlon) we came home… to me getting my first booking as a guest on Have I Got News For You?

This was big time. Angus Deayton was still hosting and the other guest was Germaine Greer.

The recording went well and it was really the start of getting recognised whenever I was out and about.

I think the show was getting almost 10 million viewers in those days.

I was on Ian Hislop’s team and, not that it’s important, we won.

It looked like the decision not to settle in Oz had been vindicated as my agent had a busy few days after the broadcast and I started to get a fair bit of corporate work from then on.

May, 1997

Fred MacAulay takes to the airwaves with my eponymous show on BBC Radio Scotland. After much discussion with the then-boss of radio, Liz Scott, I was given the job of presenting the morning programme.

I’d been worried the show would tie me down a bit but Liz assured me we’d have a lot of fun.

And we did, including a trip to New York to interview, among others, Joan Rivers, Tony Bennett, Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader, the city’s Mayor, Ed Koch, and Sex And The City writer Candace Bushnell.

November 16, 1997

This was proving to be quite a year.

I found myself in Ellon in Aberdeenshire for the first recording of a new TV chat show – McCoist & MacAulay.

With a title like that I really had my fingers crossed I’d get the gig!

Ally and I had some great adventures doing three series but the most memorable thing from that first show was the guest who didn’t turn up.

George Best was our main guest. The BBC flew him and his wife up to Aberdeen for the show, but their sense of adventure got the better of them and they ducked out of their hotel and went on a drinking spree instead of coming to the recording.

Luckily, the show went well even without Best and when broadcast it was deemed a hit by the viewing public.

June 8, 1998

A Monday night in Paris as the city prepared for the World Cup and Scotland would open the tournament with a game against the 1994 winners, Brazil.

Ally and I did a show from the Eiffel Tower and our guests were Jimmy Hill, Ulrika Jonsson and legendary Scottish actors Richard Wilson and Ewan McGregor.

The show was one thing but the night out afterwards was something else.

The Tartan Army were in Paris and in good voice as we joined them for a pint (or maybe two) afterwards in the Auld Alliance Pub.

Sadly, there was an unsavoury incident with Ulrika and her then-boyfriend, which I missed as I was busy pulling pints at the bar.

December 31, 1998

One of my ambitions when I started getting TV work was to host or co-host the BBC Hogmanay Show.

This came to pass with a huge outdoor broadcast from Edinburgh Castle which I co-hosted with Carol Smillie.

It was 20 years ago and the BBC budgets were quite different back then.

Carol and I were helicoptered into the castle esplanade and whisked up to the Great Room on the back of Harley Davidson motorbikes, where we introduced Duran Duran.

Not a bad gig.

September, 2003

I took a week off the daily radio show and with CSE (Combined Services Entertainment) flew to Iraq for a week of gigs entertaining the troops, as the war there had ended in the late spring of 2003.

It wasn’t quite like Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam, but it was still an incredible and memorable experience.

Based in Kuwait City, we were helicoptered around Iraq, but this time in giant Chinooks.

There was a band, a singer (Lucie Silvas) and the brilliant ventriloquist Paul Zerdin.

The servicemen were great and they looked after us while we were in their care, although the dancers seemed to get better attention than the “baldy-headed comedian guy”!

March 13, 2015

After almost 18 years of the daily show, this was my final broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland.

It was a sentimental affair and 18 years is a fair shift.

It took me a while to “reset” as I missed the daily routine and my mornings had to be filled somehow, so what I do now is phone PPI companies and give them a taste of their own medicine.

“Yes I KNOW you weren’t expecting this call… now you know how WE feel!”