A COMEDIAN has found the funny side of a life-threatening brain aneurysm which he thought was a bad cold he could sleep off.
Award-winning stand-up comic Scott Gibson, who lives in Langbank, came home from a stag weekend in Blackpool eight years ago with a thumping sore head.
Thinking it was the effects of a weekend on the lash with his pals, he went to bed to sleep it off, but ended up there for a week before finally giving in and going to hospital.
At one point he was told he was having a stroke and even turned away an ambulance.
Medics discovered it wasn’t a hangover at all but a potentially-deadly brain aneurysm.
But he laughs about it now and used the life-changing experience to kick-start his comedy career.
He tells all in his new show ‘Life After Death’, which comes to the Beacon Arts Centre on Friday May 5.
Scott, 32, told Showbuzz: “I came home and when I got up on the Monday morning I had this massive headache, I thought it was a migraine.
“I called NHS24 and they told me I was having a stroke but I thought I was fine – self-diagnosis – and sent it away.
“I spent a week in bed.
“It turned out to be a brain aneurysm.
“The show is based around these three weeks of becoming ill, getting the opportunity to do stand-up and getting out there. When you speak to people they say it doesn’t sound very funny but there are jokes in it.
“It’s a serious topic but I find the humour in it and that’s where real humour is, in life itself.
“For a long time I wanted to do stand-up but never had the courage to do it.
“Once I got better I thought I might as well have a go.”
That was in 2009 and nowadays Scott is a household name on the comedy circuit touring with the likes of Frankie Boyle, including an Ardgowan Hospice fundraiser in Greenock Town Hall two years ago, and on his own playing a string of shows at the prestigious invitation-only Soho Theatre in London.
He was named ‘best newcomer’ at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and he also has a prestigious Chortle Award for his Dead Sheep Comedy Club, which has been at the Beacon several times.
Scott is also set to release a new comedy album in America with fellow comedian Fern Brady.
He said: “Somebody once had written a review saying it helps having a good story to tell – but you have to have the story to tell.
“When I started stand-up I knew this would be the first one.
“I’m looking forward to Greenock because the studio there is brilliant – I know the space and staff.
“It’s always great as well to have a west coast crowd.”
For tickets and more information visit www.beaconartscentre.co.uk or call the box office on 723723.
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