A few weeks ago a Guardian article by Brian Logan caused what could be considered to be ‘quite a fuss’ in the comedy world.

His article, ‘the new offenders of comedy’ accused Scott Capurro, along with Australian Brendan Burns, Richard Herring and Jim Jefferies specifically of creating the new offensive comedy movement by using provocative material in their shows.

The resounding uproar saw Logan chastised for what some consider a slanderous misrepresentation of the truth for pure journalistic benefit, but, while Herring et al rushed to protect their reputations the one man who was most viciously attacked for his outrageous style has stayed quiet. Until now…

Jesse Whittock interviews Scott Capurro…

Controversy and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival are never far away from each other. And to the cynic this is mainly because controversy often equals ticket sales. So when I ask Scott Capurro how he feels about his show being used as the fulcrum of Logan’s ‘new offenders’ article, he isn’t in the slightest bit, well, offended by it.

In fact, all he sees is more people talking about his act. We’re sitting in the downstairs bar of Mayfair’s Masons Arms pub, just off London’s Oxford Street after the regular comedy showcase ‘Upstairs at the Masons’ which the former stage actor has headlined.

Capurro, an athletically thin forty-something of over six foot, looks almost bored by the line of questioning, but he entertains them nevertheless.

What was the point of the ‘new offenders’ article I venture. He takes a second and begins his explanation.

“Logan was creating controversy,” Capurro says. “He was branding himself for Edinburgh. He talked about this in the interview I did with him for his piece.

“In the same way comics brand themselves, critics do too. But this means they lose their invisibility and that is bad because you know when they’re in the room and it ruins everything. It ruins the power and the strength of what the critic does and what the comic does as well.

“We’re like locusts – we’re all feeding off one another.” Controversy is like second nature to Capurro. Having been banned in clubs and from radio shows across the world, he was the also target of much criticism for a series of letters he exchanged with Eric Menendez, who, along with his brother, killed his parents in California twenty years ago. Therefore, he doesn’t see the same danger in Logan’s article that Burns and Herring did. In the furore following Logan’s article both men wrote to the Guardian to complain and, although many felt it justified, to Capurro it was just two overly sensitive comedians throwing their microphones out of the pram.

Burns’ faux racist comedian act was critiqued in the piece whilst Herring’s hotly-tipped Hitler Moustache routine was arguably given the most unfair treatment – Logan argued the show claims “racists have a point”, (read Richard Herring’s reaction here). But for Capurro, Herring’s complaint irritated him: “He’s been doing this for 20 years. He knows you’re often misquoted and misinterpreted: You speak to journalists and you roll a dice. I read Richard’s response and I was like, ‘Lady, get off your box!’

“I think what Brian was trying to do was raise some interesting points. I don’t think he was saying anything definitive about anybody. He didn’t say anything which would change people’s minds about what I do.”

Logan later wrote back on the Guardian comedy blog that just as Herring and Burns credited their audience with enough intelligence to get their jokes, he took the same line with his readers. He did, however, say he regretted that people had taken his article as an attack.

Even so, bars and Green rooms across Edinburgh have braced themselves for some very icy and if Herring or Burns are ever to be in the same room as the Guardian critic, it will be more than toys that are thrown. Capurro says he found the whole debate a pointless exercise because to him deconstructing a joke is to essentially kill it dead. Capurro’s act reflects this – often with his most outrageous material it isn’t the joke he cares about: it is the initial, human reaction to it. “The more you talk about it,” he says, “the less funny it gets.”

And, with Edinburgh in full swing, Capurro sees any press garnered as only a good thing. “My name was in the beginning of the article and there’s a photo, and [Logan] said he liked my set, which is all I really care about.” The worst thing that can happen to a comedian before Edinburgh is to be ignored by the press. Historically, acts who fill up the column space in the Guardian and The Scotsman gain a healthy stream of bookings in the following year. Capurro gives a damn about bookings, but not such much about a comedian’s feelings.

But The San Franciscan’s confrontational style can go wrong. Capurro was included in Logan’s article primarily due to an incident at a gig in Sheffield two weeks ago where a Madeline McCann gag backfired, leading to a heated argument between Capurro and an audience member. Logan and his girlfriend were in the crowd and later interviewed the audience members who had left about their feelings towards the comic. (This was left out of the article.)

Ever the one shock, Capurro smiles, sips his water and discloses: “Most audiences are fine with the race and religion jokes but even now you can’t tell a Maddy joke in the UK!”

Up to fifteen people walked out that night, an indication that some audiences can only be pushed so far. Capurro himself reacted badly, and would probably do the same again, although would always regret it afterwards: “Some audiences like it to stay light and fluffy.

The minute it starts to get heavy, I becoming very menacing. I don’t like that and they don’t like that and I don’t want to be that guy.”

Interestingly, for a man for who tells jokes about giving fellatio to Jesus and peppers his set with deliberately offensive racial, sexual and political slurs, he doesn’t have any real vices off stage. He doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs and rarely stays late after gigs.

In fact, when the comedy cape comes off, Capurro has a very different passion. “A lot of comics stay in the game for the drugs and the pussy.

“Well, those aren’t a thing for me so I just go home early because I get up early to do yoga.” Capurro was playing at the ‘Upstairs at the Masons’ stand-up show which is held weekly at the Masons Arms pub on Maddox Street, near Oxford Street in central London.

Scott Capurro is appearing at myspace page...

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