Mr Methane – Fart Attack

“Hello, Mr Methane is currently busy having sex with a Herdwick sheep. Please leave your message after the tone.”

Mr Methane’s sexual proclivities mean that he is running significantly late and there is only so long that the table in this lavish bar can be held. Eventually, a six foot seven man clad head to toe in luminous green lycra gangles his way through the lobby of the five star Balmoral Hotel; more than a few heads turn on the way. Levering himself down into a plush arm chair, Mr Methane has arrived but—thank God—the reasoning behind his unusual surname is not in evidence.

Mr Methane is the world’s only full-time performing flatulist. As is sensible with a job description of such rarity, spell-checker wishes to transform our friend into a performing flautist, which would be very much preferable. However, Mr Methane is what Mr Methane is and to you and me that is a professional farter.

How one gets a leg up into such an occupation—not one generally touted by schools’ careers officers—is a surprisingly compelling tale. Following a short lesson in the art of the full lotus position by his yoga obsessed sister, a young lad from Macclesfield discovered something very odd: “Quite by accident, I rolled onto my back and I noticed that I could draw in air through the sphincter muscle.” This extraordinary talent caused a cacophony of bottom belches that drew the attention of the entire household. Says Mr Methane, “I was so engrossed in farting, I didn’t notice that my Dad had come upstairs and was watching me from the door and he just said to me, ‘You’ll have an accident if you carry on like that.’”

Over the ensuing years, the quiet Cheshire lad honed his skill and mastered what he is keen to point out is a very strenuous and complicated manoeuvre. Initial crowd pleasers included a rapid fire skit where Methane would attempt to break any standing records for the largest number of farts released in one minute. Such an unsubtle act clearly embarrasses the man today. Back then, he and his mates were “just school kids.” Today, he arrives on the Fringe replete with a show of “depth” and “context.”

Sporting some inoffensive puns—“The people in the front row have real ring-side seats”—and a couple of creative maxims—“I want to put the art into fart”—Mr Methane is an affable bloke. With a Northern bluntness and turn of phrase that reminds you of several Peter Kay send-ups, hours—quite literally hours—in the company this verbose gentleman simply flit by.

The Mr Methane character was born after an appearance in a friend’s comedy-cum-music evening at a local pub. Until then, straightforward farting was all that Methane’s secret alter-ego could achieve but, under the tutelage of his showbiz mate, our be-spandexed hero was about to take on the world of music, arse first.

Absorbed by the idiosyncrasies of his art form, Methane attempts to explain how he makes the music happen: “You need question and answer songs because your colon can only take in so much air. It’s not like the bagpipes where you can keep recharging. With this it’s more like a pair of bellows. You take the air in and you use the outward blast to do the tune.” Going on to give a (thankfully) vocal demonstration of just how well the Madness song ‘I Like Driving in my Car’ lends itself to his particular brand of farting, Methane’s enthusiasm is an unstoppable force.

Whilst Rugby Club dinners and working men’s clubs have very much been Mr Methane’s stock-in-trade for much of his career, the internet and, in particular, YouTube have meant that more exciting offers from surprisingly distant lands have come his way.

Having just returned from a trip to Turkey and with tours of Europe, Scandinavia and Japan under his belt, small time show business has been kind to Methane. Once started off on his favourite subject of Japanese game shows, it’s hard to deviate more than a millimetre from the topic for the best part of half an hour. From tales of sushi playing havoc with his normally odourless party piece to an encounter with the Grand Emperor of Tokyo Broadcasting, Methane is enthralled by the alien culture: “I once did a show called Coliseum of the Gladiators. We were told we were the best acts from around the world. This Grand Emperor chap sat there in his chair and said something in Japanese, ‘Acoooor chor ee ayyyy,’ and then this woman translated it: ‘We have scoured all four corners of earth to find world’s greatest acts to compete.’ It was like an episode of Monkey or summat.”

Up against a mechanical magician and an American bloke called Bob who did a William Tell piece on a girl with freakishly long finger nails—“They were so big that blood had started going into them”—Methane thought the competition was in the bag. But just when the deal was almost done, a Korean unicyclist who could flip plates onto his head with the aid of a single toe came up the inside track and awed the crowd with his skill.

Methane has sussed out the cause of his fall from grace though: “I think the Japanese voted for him because they’re very much into martial arts and discipline – mind over matter. I think they misunderstood my act. They saw me going off all over the place and thought I was out of control.”

And well they might. But our hero has a lot to thank the Japanese for. The climax of his show involves using a blowpipe to fire a dart into a balloon – and he’s not using air from his lungs. After watching several failed attempts to achieve this feat on YouTube, a set of Japanese producers commissioned the manufacture of a new, featherlite dart for Methane to discharge. It worked like a dream. “They always say that the English can have an idea and the Japanese, they don’t invent things, but what they do is they make things better and perfect them. And this was a classic example.” Back at home in Macclesfield, Methane back-engineered the new device and produced several copies. He still uses these to this day.

But with “worsening economic conditions” and perhaps more than a little cultural saturation with the televised farting phenomenon, job offers from Japan soon dried up. After a tour of Western Australia ended in a bad bout of bush fever, Methane had to consider hanging up his cape for good. With an air of sadness, he recalls the point that marked both the highest and lowest stage of his career: “I went down to Skegness to do a gig on one of these 18-30 holidays in Butlin’s. I was still suffering and my farting powers were waning and I struggled to finish the show. I thought, is this a warning? Is this the time to finish? I’d just headlined ahead of Keith Harris and Orville so I’d just reached my peak of celebrity fame. Maybe now was the time to throw in the towel because I’d just had a man with a green duck supporting me.”

Unfortunately, what Mr Methane failed to realise until after his decision to end it all was that Keith Harris had to drive up to Blackpool that night and so had insisted on performing first in order to get back to his young children in good time. Every silver lining has a cloud.

But renewed by a long break from touring and ready to unleash his cheesy puns on the Fringe, Mr Methane has rocked into Edinburgh. His free show at the George Street Wetherspoon’s is a showcase of his unconventional talent as well as a chance for him to relate some of his more unusual life experiences. Whilst undoubtedly crude and certainly not to the taste of more sober theatre goers, Methane hopes that his set will bring a little originality to the Festival and refresh the flagging but oft cited ‘Spirit of the Fringe.’ “I really like the shambolic nature of the Free Fringe. I know a lot of comedians, professional comedians who think it devalues comedy to some extent. But in a way that’s the fault of the comedy machinery, the promoters who are taking over Edinburgh.”

The much maligned Free Fringe may be shunned by more discerning comedy fans but with increasing numbers of small-time turns coming to Edinburgh each year, perhaps farting can be the dawn of a new revolution.