I put on a free show as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2011, and I think there’s a chance I might go to hell for it.

We’ll get to that later.

I can’t say I used to be a stand-up, because it isn’t true. It’s more accurate to say that stand-up used to be my hobby, like stamp-collecting, building rubber-band-balls, or making sculptures of your neighbours’ faces from mashed potato as they sleep. The rule is you don’t get to call stand-up ‘work’ or class it as a job until you’ve progressed to regular paid work, or are doing it for a living – which is fair enough. If you slice someone’s stomach open without the proper training, you’re not a surgeon: you’re a killer.

There are no qualifications in stand-up. It’s all vocational. You have to travel up and down the country, initially (and perhaps eternally) at your own expense, performing to as many different crowds in as many different cities and venues as possible, building and honing and polishing your set, until you either get good or give up. I gave up. I never found my voice or achieved any lasting consistency across my sets. Some of my performances were good, a handful were really good, some were lucky, some were middling, some were awkward, and many of them were absolutely train-wreck fucking awful. I guess I could’ve gone somewhere, maybe, perhaps – eventually – but I lacked the guts, gumption, focus, dedication and, later when I started a family, time to level-up.

I can attest that there’s nothing like being plugged into the stand-up circuit and working with some of the most naturally funny, insanely talented people in the country to help bring into sharp focus just how unfunny and untalented you actually are. I would consider myself a funny person, but only under 4 very strict conditions: a) when I’ve written things down for people to read, b) when I’m drunk, c) when I’m bored or angry, or d) if I’ve known you for a long time, and feel incredibly comfortable in your presence. Option d) is rather a big barrier to getting good at stand-up. With all the best will in the world, you can’t stay on stage for 6 months as the audience slowly grows fond of you. Ditto backstage at gigs: if you exempt yourself from the bare-knuckle banter and withdraw into yourself long enough to let nerves or silence dictate your place in the room and the wider industry, then you’ll always be a wall-flower.

Anyway, ignorance, naivety and alcohol conspired to convince me that I was ready to attempt 40 to 50 minutes of stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe very early in my ‘career’. My show was called God vs Jamie Andrew, and it required me to dress like a priest and rant blasphemously. I enjoyed it greatly, even if my audiences couldn’t always say the same.

Thankfully, I’d managed to secure an obscure venue with an odd-shaped room at an obscure time of the day, far from the madding crowd, so there weren’t many witnesses to my early stutter-steps (or fall-down-the-stairs-steps). Again, a few of the performances went alright – some of them even teetering on good – but even the ‘good’ ones were rough, raw and unready, and any success was as temporary as it was lucky. Sometimes I played to near silence, and not all of that could be attributed to the fact that the venue was a hostel, and the audience on any given day might have consisted entirely of bewildered Japanese people with a poor grasp of English. Sometimes I was shit. Sometimes I didn’t care. One time I actually dragged a stool on to the stage, and with shaking hand sat humbled and dejected in front of the audience calmly explaining to them that I was so disgustingly hungover that the hour ahead would be a penance for all of us. It was. Fair play to them, though, because they stayed, and even placed some coins in the bucket, I’m sure more out of sympathy than gratitude.

One day, after a particularly enjoyable performance, I decided to kill a few hours before getting the train back home seeing some other free shows. I was full of joy and vitality as I strolled along Edinburgh’s thoroughfares and up and down its nightmarishly steep staircases, and by ‘full of joy and vitality’ I mean I was drunk. Good drunk, though. Happy drunk. I was walking along with a beatific smile slapped across my lips, regarding the world with a goofy, half-cocked optimism, unable to drive or even properly walk but somehow convinced that I had the power to change the world.

Outside the train station I saw a homeless girl sitting on the street. She was a crestfallen soul in her mid-twenties who looked like the girl-next-door who by six-degrees of unlucky separation had become the girl-next-doorway. Christ-like thoughts danced through my head. I wanted to help her. Who knows if I was motivated by actual goodness, drunken sentimentality or some misplaced sense of self-importance, but it didn’t really matter. I couldn’t help her. The only thing of direct value in my pocket was a train ticket, and I didn’t think she’d appreciate that. She’d still be homeless, but just… somewhere else. “Hey, I’ve really enjoyed your debut Fringe show, ‘Sad Street Girl’. Why don’t you use this ticket to take this motherfucker on tour?”

I gave her the only other thing I had: a flyer for my show. Way to kick a girl when she’s down, right?

I invited her to the venue I’d be performing at the next day, and told her I’d put money behind the bar so she could come in an hour or so before the show started to have something to eat. All she had to do was say my name at the bar, and the staff would sort her out.

I walked away feeling pretty good about myself. I was a living saint; a half-jaked Jesus. They would compose songs about me. Build statues in my honour.

The next day, the homeless girl arrived at the venue, and duly spent the fiver I’d put behind the bar on booze. Who was I to judge? Booze had united us, so maybe it was the key to the success of our fledgling relationship. I drank to that.

When I told her I was going out to flyer to drum up an audience for that day’s show, without a second’s thought or negotiation she grabbed a stack of flyers and raced out into the street ahead of me. She fearlessly and tirelessly approached (and in some cases stalked and hunted) hundreds of passers-by, and delivered a pitch that was so friendly, enthusiastic, and charming that she pulled in the biggest and best audience of my festival to that point. The show went well, and the crowd was engaging and appreciative. They were also incredibly generous at the end of the performance (‘incredibly generous’ at my level of renown and expertise meant that there was enough money in the hat to cover my train ticket home, get me drunk and still have a little left-over for some description of post-drinking, artery-hardening fast-food). I rewarded my new Head of PR and ticket sales with another couple of pints. I was feeling good about myself: riding high on the buzz of a good show, and surfing on a wave of well-being for my part in helping a person less fortunate than myself. What a good soul I was.

Another half-hour or so later, my new friend had to leave, so I walked her to the door and thanked her profusely. She thanked me back. I said she could flyer for me any day and I’d make sure she was paid for it. We said our half-drunken, smiling goodbyes and both went in for a hug, but as our bodies drew close we looked into each other’s eyes and there was an awkward moment where it looked as if we might… just might… were we about to?…we were leaning in… were we about to… kiss?

We didn’t, but we had a long – perhaps too long – hug, and then off she went.

I stood in the street and lit a cigarette, trying to process what had just happened. My brain became the cop at the end of The Usual Suspects, suddenly slotting the horrible truth of the last few hours into place. I told myself I’d done good deeds, been a good man, but what had I actually done?

I’d lured a homeless lady who clearly had a drinking problem into a pub, plied her with alcohol, allowed her to work for me for less than the minimum wage, paid her in alcohol instead of cash, and then almost kissed her whilst drunk and dressed as a priest.

Nice one, Kaiser Soze.

What are you going to do at tomorrow’s show? Euthanise an old lady live on stage? Exploit some sex workers?

Actually, that’s a great idea for a show…

See you next year, Edinburgh!

THE END

PS: Please get out there and see live comedy, because many of the funniest, most-accomplished, most exciting and novel stand-ups in the country – and indeed the world – aren’t on TV, but out there tirelessly working in comedy clubs, theatres and the back-rooms of pubs up and down the country night after night, week after week. Get up off your arse and give yourself a treat.