Tony Slattery is still a miraculously gifted comedian

Some of the marketing efforts by amateur impresarios up in Edinburgh are extraordinary. I was handed a leaflet for a poetry show called Don’t Bother. I didn’t. Tony Slattery appears in Slattery Will Get You Nowhere (a good pun that advertises the content), in which the ageing comic takes the audience back to the 1990s. In those days he was a handsome, clever, charismatic wag who suffered from an excess of self-regard. Now he’s a grizzled, ramshackle presence, jowly and ill-shaven, like a forgetful pensioner on his way to the day centre.

He starts his show with a lot of banter about wine but he doesn’t drink on stage. Alongside him sits a friendly interviewer who guides him through the rougher bridleways of his anecdotes. His memory is a little shaky but his comic instincts and his unquenchable love of mischief haven’t deserted him. He hints at an episode of sexual abuse at school but refuses to go into details ‘because it’s not funny, and I shouldn’t say this either because it really isn’t funny, except that it is: child abuse can come back to bite you on the arse.’ He once hosted an event sponsored by a leading champagne marque. ‘Remarkable bubbly, isn’t it?’ he told the crowd. ‘How they got the cats to squat on the bottles I can’t imagine.’ He recalls being sent on stage at the Baftas to improvise while a lighting cue was being rearranged. ‘I’m here as a last-minute replacement for the Evening Standard’s theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh who — it has just been announced — is a complete cunt.’ Slattery pauses. ‘That was the last time the Baftas were televised live.’ These glimpses of a crumpled but indomitably funny comedian should be recorded and uploaded to YouTube. He’s still a miraculously gifted performer and his repertoire of gags and anecdotes, salvaged from a reluctant memory, have the feel of a cult classic.