Mark Nelson: Guilty Pleasure

Despite a grim worldview and propensity for darkness, Mark Nelson is one of the brighter sparks of the Scottish comedy circuit, a strong writer and solid performer. His subject matter rarely strays from the stuff of hysterical tabloid headlines—alcohol, violence, poverty and obesity, with an unremarkable routine on page three girls thrown in for good measure—but there’s no doubting the relevance of these subjects to his hometown of Glasgow.

As a bona fide Scottish standup he’s in a minority at Scotland’s big arts festival, giving him a distinctive perspective. He begins strongly with a cheeky dig at the English riots and a neatly built-up Arnold Schwarzenegger gag, and thereafter focuses on the west of Scotland and his hometown of Dumfries. A wry social observer, he tends to evoke a horrific spectacle, such as a music festivalgoer employing a pizza box as a makeshift toilet, then slaughters the offending individual with lacerating cruelty.

Some of his humour, such as a routine where he channels sectarian malevolence into a throwaway gag about rape is as black and dubious as anything you’ll hear in standup, though more often he turns the stinging criticism on himself. He rejected computer games after an especially harsh wake-up call, wittily recalled, and he has a particularly good joke on why he no longer possesses a moustache and performs in a suit. Fewer easy targets and more surprises, like his pitiless take on McDonalds colonising China, would push him towards the standup elite.