Craig Ferguson, the Scottish comedian and former US chat show host, is returning to his homeland for his first Edinburgh fringe standup show in 25 years. The 57-year-old, who quit drinking in 1992 and moved to the US a year later, says he is nervous but eager to reconnect with a UK audience. 'I'm a little nervous because it's the first one I've done here in a long time – and I don't know if it will be different or not,' he told the Guardian.
Ferguson rose to fame in the US as host of CBS's Late Late Show from 2005 to 2014, where he pioneered a surreal and confessional style. His 2009 interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu won a Peabody award, and his 2007 monologue about Britney Spears, in which he revealed his own 15 years of sobriety, became a viral resource for those struggling with addiction. 'Because this weekend she was checking in and out of rehab, she was shaving her head and getting tattoos – and this Sunday I was 15 years sober,' he said at the time.
In his memoir, Riding the Elephant, published earlier this year, Ferguson writes candidly about his alcoholism and the challenges of recovery. 'I should have died in 1992,' he reflects. After being talent-spotted at the fringe by a Los Angeles agent, he moved to the US and found success playing an English toff on The Drew Carey Show. 'Nobody in Hollywood cared if I'd been a drunk or from the wrong social background,' he writes.
Now based partly in Glasgow, where his younger son attends school, Ferguson is ready to perform standup again. He admits to residual resentment about cliched reactions to his accent but says he no longer feels the 'visceral barricade anger' of his youth. 'What I feel about class is that it robs everybody,' he adds.
