Alison Rowat's week: Don't put your husband on the stage, Mrs Salmond

SALMOND CHANTED EVENING AHEAD

DON’T put your husband on the stage, Mrs Salmond. That would have been the advice doled out if your columnist had been consulted over plans for the former First Minister to perform at the Fringe in August.
Alas, no one had the good sense to pick up the phone, and now the hall has been booked (the 400-seater Assembly Rooms no less), the tickets are on sale (dearer than Frankie Boyle’s) and Scotland’s answer to Noel Coward (or Noel Edmonds) is in rehearsal. It will end in tears, of course. Mebbes of laughter, mebbes not.
It was Julie Burchill who said politics was show business for ugly people. No surprise, then, that once politicians have done with the election lark – and in Mr Salmond’s case the voters of Gordon took care of that – they should try to cross over to the other side. After all, how hard can a theatre show or TV series be after you have spent decades clawing your way up the greasy pole? Selection committees are nothing but a form of chat show, and there were plenty of people who laughed at your jokes in the chamber. Remember that trouser-wetter about the Schleswig-Holstein question? As for being appealing, didn’t the public once elect you?
Such are the thoughts that may have run through the minds of politicians from Lembit Opik and Michael Portillo to Ed Balls and now Alex Salmond. By and large, the leap to light entertainment is successful, although one does wonder how much Ed Balls’ ability to dance Gangnam-style while astride some sexy lady (Psy’s words, sisters) segues with his work as a visiting professor at Harvard. There are some things about Mr Salmond’s show, however, that raise a red flag.
First, the title. The words “Alex Salmond Unleashed” rather conjure a vision of a cartoon Tasmanian Devil, knocking everyone over as he blasts through the joint like a tornado. Now, political reporters may have chuckled over Mr Salmond’s evisceration of the odd Tory MP in the past, but civilians, ordinary audience members, might baulk at the carnage he is capable of generating. The programme promises “light-hearted banter”, but come on, Alex, you do chit chat the way Game of Thrones does weddings. There is frequently blood.
His producer is fellow former MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, the hitherto hidden Max Bialystock of Scottish politics, and it is presumably she who will be in charge of the next problematic area: guests. “I suspect people might be taken aback at the range of friends who are invited along,” says Mr S, immediately raising expectations I suspect Ms Ahmed-Sheikh will struggle to fulfil. Come on Alex, don’t be coy, who are the rabbits out of the hat? Is it Herald columnist David Torrance? If so, watch yourself: he bites. It is not Nicola Sturgeon: she’s washing her hair for the entire two-week run. Nor is it Donald Trump. No country that outlaws cockfighting would allow you two in the same room. That leaves poor Mrs Salmond filling the bill every night, and there’s only so much entertainment even Moira can wring from the spoons.
Audiences have also had their appetites whetted by the promise of revelations from a political life. “Ever wonder what Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister really thinks?” asks the blurb. (If we say no will you go away?).  I don’t know about you, but I cannot recall Mr Salmond ever being someone who habitually bit his lip on controversial matters. Why, it would be unpardonable folly to think such things.
But all said and done, we wish the old trouper well as he takes to the stage. He is possessed of one of the sharpest wits in politics, dispensing slaggings of such quality one would swear he was born in Glesga rather than Linlithgow. He is good for the gaiety of the nation, so good on him for having a go.
There is another reason to hope he breaks a leg, as they say in theatreland. Not long after news of his Edinburgh show broke with a thunderclap, Mr Salmond was asked about the chances of a political comeback. “The wheel turns, and can turn sometimes unexpectedly and very quickly,” he said, sphinx-like. That will be an aye, then. (The Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser was tickled pink by this, saying gleefully that just when Nicola Sturgeon thought she had got rid of Mr Salmond for good he was now threatening a comeback. I always think Mr Fraser would be a perfect fit for show business. Then I remember that there could only ever be one Orville.)
So there you have it, buy a ticket for Mr Salmond’s Edinburgh show, keep the old darling in showbiz, or he’ll be back at Holyrood before you know it. Do form an orderly queue there, SNP MSPs.