What was it about Victor and Barry?

A personal viewpoint by Peter, webmaster of this site.

Victor Ignatius MacIlvaney and Barry Primrose McLeish, founder members of the Kelvinside Young People's Amateur Dramatic Art Society, are the creations of Forbes Masson and Alan Cumming.

Victor and Barry's reminiscences of their years with the fictitious dramatic society entertained thousands of comedy lovers from the Edinburgh festival through to regional Australian cities in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

But Alan and Forbes didn't "just do Victor and Barry". They were at pains to point out to anyone who would listen and anyone who, quite frankly, didn't have a clue who the heck these Scottish blokes were, that they were actors who had met at drama school and created V&B in their early years.

For those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing Victor and Barry live or hearing their album "Hear Victor and Barry and Faint", then you'll just have to listen to those of us who have, rave about them. And rave about them we do. Victor and Barry had the uncommon ability to engender a strong following amongst their fans even though they were hardly as prolific as some other comedians.

To find out why this was so, I think I should digress a moment. Understandably if you got to meet them you found out that they were two down to earth blokes with wicked senses of humour (as you might expect in a pair of comedians) But for most people, perhaps the interesting part was that they were something fresh in the comedy market. We'd all seen stand up comedians with all sorts of gimmicks from the slapstick violence of Alexei Sayle to the straight faced delivery of Elliot Goblet. But this V&B was something new -- amateur dramatics.

Amateur dramatics? That's the common link? Can you imagine being a fly on the wall when they first met their then agent,the relatively great Richard Stone of Benny Hill fame, and pitched the idea of a pair of slightly camp thespians reminiscing about their days with the Kelvinside Young People's Amateur Dramatic Art Society?

Gordon Bennett, no one goes to amateur theatre any more. Well perhaps no one admits to it, but deep down inside we can all remember the never ending weeks of rehearsal at school or the local amateur rep as we rehearsed musicals such as West Side Story (Victor and Barry's West End Story), Hair (Victor and Barry's Slightly Receding) and Oliver (Victor and Barry's O-Liver).

For those of us who have ventured onto the amateur stage, the slightly camp Victor and Barry's reminiscences could be our own (except they told the stories much more funnily than we ever could) -- the tight budgets;

the same shows mounted over and over, year after year;

and the lack of young members;

But theatrical reminiscences are hardly enough to base a comedy act on, let alone a tour to the antipodes. So they branched out.

There was also the clever humour; occasionally risque but never obscene;

occasional 'think about it' jokes;

and even the occasional politically incorrect joke:

That was what was funny about them. OK, so it loses something in the translation but that, I'm afraid, will have to hold you. Because, unfortunately it seems that V&B have hung up their monogrammed blazers and leased out their bijou apartment-ette in Kelvinside. With Alan achieving considerable success in the USA, recently in a stage revival of Cabaret but also in a string of movies (he's hardly ever off the screen!), and Forbes achieving his own success back in the UK with his own musicals Stiff and Mince, and now a stint on the long running soap Eastenders, there seems little chance for a reunion.

So the best I can do for you all is tell it like it was (or at least as I remember it). If you can, you should beg, borrow or steal a copy of their album Hear Victor and Barry and Faint.

If you can't, then you'll just have to sit there at dinner parties and laugh along with everyone else, prentending that you actually understand why the words "oh dearie me." are so funny.