He made his name as “the eyebrow guy” in a video rant which went viral in 2019, but Glaswegian comic Gary Meikle has gone from disgruntled dad to comedy sensation in the space of two years.
The 44-year-old Scottish Comedy Award winner rose to fame before lockdown when his jokey rant about his daughter’s obsession with her eyebrows blew up on social media.
Now Gary’s back off the screen and on the road with his new tour Surreal, bringing laughs to the Whitehall Theatre in Dundee and Fife’s Alhambra, as well as prestigious venues such as London’s Leicester Square and Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.
And according to Gary, “Surreal” is exactly the word to sum up his meteoric rise at a time when the entertainment industry all but shut down – although he throws in “eye-opening”, “therapeutic” and “amazing” for good measure.
“As much as I wouldn’t have hoped that thousands of people died during it, Covid’s actually been great for me on a personal level, and a professional one,” Gary observes, showing a glimpse of his close-to-the-bone style of humour.
“Firstly, it’s allowed me to double my audience, because I’ve had more of a chance to focus on my online stuff.
“But other than that, it’s given me time to reflect as a comedian. And not to blow my own trumpet, but this tour is much better than my debut.”
Here come the girls
Where his debut tour, The iBrow Guy, saw Gary still finding his feet, Surreal is, despite the name, more solid. Modest about his writing process – “it’s just me talking about my life, and I cherry pick the best bits” – he says around half of this tour’s material focuses on his four-year-old granddaughter, Gracie.
Gary, who became a dad at 17 and a granddad at 40, welcomed last year’s lockdowns, because he got to spent quality time with his “girls” – Gracie and her mum, Ainsley. He reckons the two most important ladies in his life are what help him keep his positive attitude and sense of humour when times are tough.
“My granddaughter, she’s five this month and when (Covid) started she was three,” Gary explains. “So I’ve had nearly two years to spend nearly every single day with her and just soak up all these early memories, which has been an absolute blessing.”
But fear not, rant fans – Gary’s not gone soft.
“Half of my show is about Gracie this year, yes” he says. Then he adds: “About how kids can drive you mental!”
‘All of Scotland’s a home gig’
For Gary, the current run of Scotland-based gigs is a treat – because “anywhere in Scotland is a home gig”.
“It’s good for me,” he laughs, “Because I don’t feel like I need to slow down. When I go to England, I need to actually move my lips!
“It’s fascinating how you can literally go half an hour in a car and then the accent is completely different. That just baffles me! It’s as if there’s a fence you cross over in the middle of a field where all of a sudden it changes.”
That said, with around one-third of his audience found in the states, Gary says he made the conscious decision to ensure his material wasn’t reliant on his accent – or a Scottish crowd.
“When I started putting my videos out that I was going to speak clearly – still retain the Glaswegian accent obviously but speak properly,” he explains. “Because I knew I didn’t want to just stay in Scotland. I wanted to go everywhere.
“And in that first year, I was everywhere – America, Canada, Australia, Europe – and mostly, everyone was able to understand me. So it paid off for me, big time.”
‘…But I’ll never go back to Edinburgh’
Yet despite touring all around the world, there’s one place Gary swears he’ll never return to.
“This is one thing,” he says. “I’ll never go back to Edinburgh!
“I’m so glad that I’ve got my own audience and things are going well enough that I don’t ever have to go back to Edinburgh. I hated having to write a show based around the Guardian and Daily Mail, who come to the (Fringe) shows and do the reviews and judge everyone.
“They think everything has to have a beginning, middle and end, or it has to be emotional and clever – f*** off! Comedy’s comedy. My job is to make people laugh as long, as hard and as much as possible in that hour.”
Luckily for Gary, his army of fans on social media means that he shouldn’t need the approval of reviewers any time soon.
“This is what I love about social media!” he exclaims, flinging up his hands. “I love the fact that it’s my audiences that have put me where I am, not some fat-cat TV executive.
“That’s the way it should be.”
For tickets to Gary’s Dundee and Fife shows, or more information about the tour, visit Gary’s website.
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