John Robertson: Comedy Spotlight

You're a Timecop entrusted with protecting the timeline from criminal abuse, but fuck that. Ron Silver just went back in time and stole a ton of money. If Ron Silver can do that, you can do ANYTHING. If you could change any event from your past, what would it be, and exactly how would doing-the-splits factor into this exciting time-adventure?

I’d like to go back to yesterday and insult my friendly neighborhood smack dealer using words he can understand! “Stupid gnarl-faced, gremlin-headed cocksucker” didn’t faze him, though “cocksucker” offered a sad glimmer of recognition, as of knees in the dirt behind the bike sheds, gumming the older boys for sweets. I’d like to zoom back in time, bend both his legs over his head, jam his meth up his gift shop, and watch him roll down the road as he feverishly gobbles up his own anus. It’s displays like this that can unite a community.

Travelling back to the non-Timecop parts of your life, at exactly what point (perhaps while gazing into The Swan river) did you first think, 'Holy fuck, I'm a funny guy'?

I was 18, 5’ 8’’, and convinced I’d grow taller. My best friend, Mel Tregonning, turned to me and said, “John, if you were taller, you wouldn’t be funny, you’d just be terrifying.” That’s when I knew… when I realised God had made me the perfect height so my face and manner and general JUMPING AND SHOUTING WHEN STANDING STILL AND NOT TALKING WILL DO wouldn’t just scare the shit out of everybody (I am, thanks to height, at least semi-adorable).

When did you last fall into self-doubt and think, 'Fuck, I'm not funny at all,' and so decide to become a Timecop?

I contracted food poisoning and the symptoms manifested themselves in the aftermath of a threesome. I leapt over two sleeping women to go throw-up. As my dinner left me, I couldn’t think of a single really good one-liner. What a talentless jerk!

Messing up the timeline co-ordinates, you thrust yourself into the future too far and end up in a mad scientist's lab. He hates Timecops and he hates comedy. If he sewed you and the cast of Cheers up into a galactic centipede that's eating its own ass, where mouth-to-ass in the chain would you prefer to go in the circle?

Put Frasier at the back of me and Kirstie Alley in the front. He can sing “Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs” and I’ll giggle into Kirstie Alley, plus I’ll be stuck between two minor Star Trek characters that shared the same uniform! (Answers on the back of a self-addressed postcard, winner gets a centipede spot behind the guy who played Norm.)

Due to The Skinny's global domination, they own the scientist's ass and can offer you a way out the centipede. But, it's on the condition you head back to the current time period, give up Timecopping and shit in another comedian's car. You accept. Whose car would you choose to do a three-flusher in and why that particular comedian?

I would gladly push the browned, squishy remnants of a five-curry night into any car, item or puppet owned by Jeff Dunham, whose ongoing success is the world’s finest justification for weaponised pooping. “Silence… I kill you”, I’d whisper, as the sunroof opened and the jeans dropped…

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John Robertson: Let's Redecorate plays The Stand Comedy Club VI: 5, 7-16, 18-30 Aug, 2.50pm, £10; The Dark Room – Symphony of a Floating Head plays Underbelly, Cowgate: 6-30 Aug, 8.40pm, £10.50