Live wire

Rick Shapiro has the capacity to excite and infuriate audiences in equal measure. A stalwart of the NY comedy scene, his appearance in Louis CK's sitcom Lucky Louie brought him a wider audience, although he remained as impenetrable or as uncompromising as ever – depending on your opinion.

Tackling such subjects as prostitution and a heroin addiction makes Shapiro a difficult proposition for some. Things won't get any easier for Shapiro's audiences because his life doesn't get much smoother. Since his last Fringe, he has survived a car crash and suffered amnesia as a result – not ideal for the average performer. Shapiro is not, however, the average performer.

"Actually the past four years were great," the moustachioed comic says, somewhat unexpectedly. "I did a couple of TV shows, did a movie, released a CD, had my own book published and did everything from drink coffee to screw girls in parking lots. I've been busy doing what I love."

I suppose, for someone with a wayward style, it might be hard to notice when things have gone awry?

"It was only the first year that was odd... and quite frankly, I had amnesia, so I don’t remember it being “traumatic." The only thing I remember was talking to lamps and walking around lobbies half naked, but I just kept working. Like I say, I had amnesia, so maybe I don’t remember the rough parts."

It's not, of course, that Shapiro, now 43, has failed to draw any lessons from his, erm, "convalescence."

"I discovered there are no boundaries, that you can be a whirling dervish, shamanistic, all the things that people described. I just didn’t know they were describing them enviously. You can go up on stage and have a great time, and not worry about some guy in a grey suit who's more worried about whether your next show is going to be able to get him a free salad because he's your fucking agent. You can free-wheel it because you had amnesia: 'Guess what, I don’t remember my jokes... Ha ha! Let’s explode, let’s start the show, continue the show and explode. Explode! Get that caesar salad all over your suit!'"

So, duly unfettered, (to the point where I'm essentially at a Shapiro gig) this livewire, immortalised in Grand Theft Auto IV, is ready for anything – Edinburgh included. 

This will be the American's third visit to the festival with his previous shows described by The Guardian as having "more personality than most other standups put together" but "that personality can be very hard work." Chortle said: "There’s an authenticity to his wired, wild act that’s raw, visceral and risky, leading to a genuine frisson of unpredictability. It’s uncompromisingly aggressive, often misogynistic and, to be frank, frequently just not funny – as he simply hasn’t the discipline to channel his crude emotions into punchlines." 

Not that the opinions of others has dampened Shapiro's anticipation of the Fringe. "It makes me feel like I’m drinking again and I'm not."

This intoxication comes from hanging with kindred spirirts. "Comedians are the best people in the world to hang out with, good mood or bad mood, they can take it. I know I can! Edinburgh redefines the expression, boys will be boys; girls will be girls. Its wild, its fierce, except for those shows that are neither. But they get picked up as background music anyway."

I see his point that, up here, comedians can come across as almost mythical in their power (until perhaps TV exposure or arena tour diminishes the magic), and there is no doubt Shapiro has high expectations of his fellow comics.

"When is the last time you heard a comic want to excite you? Excite, excite you... think about the word excite. Excite... excite excite excite excite... Say it a hundred times, look in the mirror, excite excite excite... Ask if there is a comic, looking in the mirror right now saying 'I want to EXCITE the audience!' I didn’t know the bookers allowed that. I don’t even know if they do in the States."

The vigour of his argument must surely derive from his brushes with illness and injury. I suggest this to him and am suitably rewarded: "When you're talented and your lose your mind you get to be talented and lose your mind, as long as there is a comedy sign behind you. People need someone who loves diving off the high dive that everyone knows is there. They walks by it and no one notices it. Yet they look out of the corner of their eye and say, 'I really don’t see a high-dive – I mean, not tangibly.' It ain’t like it’s made out of concrete. I’m made out of something stronger."