when I first met Eddie... The first time I ever saw him
was in Edinburgh in 1989.
And it was a bunch of street performers
working on The Mound, which was a big, main pitch.
It was one of those days when everyone lines up.
So there's maybe sort of six, seven people lined up.
And suddenly the heavens opened and it just started pouring with rain.
So, of course all the crowds disappear. The sky is black.
And street performers, being the sort of people they are, we just...
None of us would go home or go back and get changed, go to a pub.
We all just stayed waiting, A, for the rains to clear.
But, you know, we literally stood there for two hours, and you'd think,
"There's no point. Might as well just go home, forget about it."
But, as I said, because we're street performers,
we just tend to be very lazy about doing anything, even going home.
So, we just all sat there and we chatted and stuff.
And then suddenly, after about two hours
of it just being black and dark and horrible,
the sky cleared and the rain stopped,
and the first shaft of sunlight came out.
Now, in that situation,
obviously someone's got to go out and do the first show.
But the problem with doing that is when you go out, there's no one there.
So, someone goes out and does the first show,
and, of course, what happens is they gradually get a crowd.
Meanwhile, the ground dries and people start coming back.
So if you do the second and third show, you've now got an audience.
So no one wants to do that first show.
So what I remember is, the rains had stopped
and I remember Eddie going out and doing a show.
And it was very interesting 'cause he went out
and the rain had settled in patches on the floor, on the concrete.
So they're these puddles, little sort of ponds of water.
I remember Eddie doing maybe like 10, 15 minutes
while he was waiting to get a crowd.
And he got a crowd of, like, you know, 10, 12 people,
talking about the activity that was going on inside these little puddles.
So he's talking about the microbes and what they were saying to each other
and obviously they were Scottish microbes 'cause it was Edinburgh.
And it was interesting, 'cause now looking back on it,
I mean, at the time I thought, "This guy is very funny."
But only in the context of, like, as a street performer, he's quite good.
But equally this thing about, you know,
you can be very funny as a street performer,
but that doesn't mean you're gonna be successful.
If you've got a big, tall unicycle and juggling fire,
you're gonna make lots of money
and you can be the funniest person in the world.
But if you're just talking to them, you're not gonna make any money.
So, I never saw him as a successful street performer at the time.
But I obviously knew he had this, you know,
a certain charm and a certain quality.
And it's interesting, 'cause looking back,
I realise what he was doing then and what he was talking about
is exactly, exactly, the same sort of thing he does nowadays.
He goes onstage and he's doing the same sort of thing.
And if you transpose him from that moment
onto, you know, Wembley Arena, or whatever,
it would be the sort of same material.
But it's just different 'cause it's in a different context.