Christopher Macarthur-Boyd

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Friday 4th July 2025

It was the first of times, it was the worst of times.

This time we welcome one of the finest comics to emerge from Scotland over the last decade (12 years in fact; we've just checked below). It's Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, whose Edinburgh Fringe shows are precision-engineered to make grown humans howl. Now he's at it too.

"I suppose you could say Howling At The Moon is the culmination of a trilogy in my head of horror-themed shows," says the Glaswegian comic. "Oh No was about a mental breakdown during covid, Scary Times was about the death of Britain, and Howling At The Moon is more personal. I'm the monster in this story, and this is why I am the way that I am.

"But that would all be kind of nonsense, it's just a stand-up hour with a cool name. It's about a break-up, and a new relationship, and undiagnosed mental health problems, and being a nighttime person, and the rise of fascism, and sexuality and grief and nostalgia and all the other typical things people do stand-up about."

Having excelled at that for some time now, he's also nailing the podcast game, with the not inconsiderable help of Frankie Boyle and Susie McCabe, on the hugely popular Here Comes the Guillotine. And what else is he up to, from September onwards?

"I think after the Fringe I'm going to lie down and play the Switch 2 for a week, and maybe get exquisitely chonged," muses Macarthur-Boyd. "Then, a tour, presumably. I think I'm going to take December mostly off from stand-up, and try to write a wee book. Then a big old tour in Spring next year."

If the stars align. But now let's head back a dozen years...

First gig?

It was February 2013, and I was nineteen years-old at Red Raw at The Stand in Glasgow. Billy Kirkwood was the MC, and the headliner was Joe Heenan. Jim Smith, Gareth Waugh, Chrissy Ross and Liam Cumbers were all on, and Liam asked me, "Do you have any other gigs booked in?" I didn't know there was any other gigs.

I think I did about three minutes of my five minute set. It felt like an out-of-body experience, and outside Chrissy said, "You should keep doing this!" And then I did.

I got on the underground subway at Kelvinbridge to get the train back to Buchanan Street where I could get another train from Queen Street back to Easterhouse train station which I lived next to with my mum and dad, and some girls who were on the subway platform said I had been funny. I've been chasing that thrill ever since.

Favourite show, ever?

Last year I did my first UK tour of my show Scary Times, and the jewel of it was a hometown date in Glasgow at The Pavilion, which is a beautiful old 1,400 seater proscenium arch music hall from 1904 with Rococo plasterwork and terrazzo plasterwork that Sarah Bernhardt and Harry Lauder and all that mob used to play.

I think reputationally it became the stomping ground for Jim Davidson and various adult hypnotists, but now it's having a bit of a renaissance as a true alternative for comedians who want to do a lovely room in Glasgow.

I recorded my special there in November. It's out now via Some Laugh podcast's YouTube channel.

Worst gig?

I didn't even actually do the most horrendous gig in my career, but I was offered to do half an hour of stand-up at someone's wedding because I bore a resemblance to a friend of theirs who had died. I had to explain to them that I was a comedian, and not a hireable haunting facsimile of a dead person, as the fee was insufficient.

Also, I opened for the film Joker with 45 minutes of stand-up at an outdoor cinema in a park in Leicester during a thunderstorm.

Which one person influenced your comedy life most significantly?

Sadly, Rosco Mcclelland. Also, Frankie Boyle and Susie McCabe taking me on tour as their support acts and then doing the Here Comes the Guillotine podcast with me allowed me a peek at what is possible in comedy.

And who's the most disagreeable person you've come across in the business?

Too many to mention. Stand-up comedy, particularly in Scotland, is the refuge of the bitter husk. Also, Rosco Mcclelland.

Is there one routine/gag you loved, that audiences inexplicably didn't?

I had a bit about how my ex bought a bag of "rainbow quinoa" at the supermarket, and how I had taken umbrage with the descriptive word "rainbow" because the three colours in the spectrum of the bag were beige, brown, and dark brown. The only world that that is a rainbow in is one conjured by a wizard who hates himself.

I think the leap from observational supermarket comedy to ennui-ridden wizard comedy was a difficult one for audiences. Plus, I think many punters struggled to see world-conjuring as one of the talents of a wizard, which is actually a fair point and not something you would immediately associate with them.

Your best tip for emerging from the Fringe relatively unscathed?

The queue at Mary's Milk Bar on Grassmarket is always worth the wait.

Any reviews, heckles or post-gig reactions stick in the mind?

No. I use a modified nasal rinse to wash feedback out of my mind with a mix of saline water, human spermatoza, and slightly diluted grey lead paint.

How do you feel about where your career is at, right now?

I don't think it's helpful to think about this.

Christopher Macarthur-Boyd: Howling at the Moon is at Monkey Barrell, Edinburgh, from 28 July to 24 August. Tickets