Brian Beacom

BELIEVE it or not, Grant Stott is happy to have stood in a rain-soaked Edinburgh street for three weeks while humphing traffic cones.

He’s totally accepting of the fact he was knocked back by all the major drama colleges in the country.

And he’s more than fine with remembering he once caused an audience’s throats to constrict when he played the Arches hit Sugar Sugar at a Diabetes convention.

Why? It’s not that the radio and panto star has masochism issues, it’s because he knows his early professional experiences were all steps in the direction of becoming a radio and panto star.

And they have provided some great material for his new touring show.

Grant is currently touring his one-man production, Tales From Behind The Mic in which he reveals all the best and worst bits from 27 years in radio broadcasting, with 17 of them fronting the daytime slot with Radio Forth.

“It just feels absolutely right,” he says, with a pleased smile of his new venture.

“I’m fifty this year so it’s time to take stock. I’ve been so busy for the past fifteen years, and it’s been great.

“But it’s hard doing touring theatre at night, Fringe shows, panto and the day job that is radio.”

Grant’s stint on radio gave him the confidence to spread his wings.

He has starred alongside Andy Gray in stage comedy Kiss Me, Honey Honey, an Edinburgh Fringe First winner.

Two years ago, he and Andy had another comedy hit with Ian Pattison’s Festival success, Willie and Sebastian.

And Grant is a King’s Theatre panto regular, alongside Andy Gray and Allan Stewart.

His professional experience has given him the skills and comedy experience to compile his touring show, featuring a collections of radio clips and video which he controls from a tablet on stage.

The show also offers insight into Grant’s life pre-radio. When he left school, the teenager tried his damnedest to get into drama college - but didn’t make it.

“I tried Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, everybody knocked me back.”

His height (he’s six feet three) rather than his natural predisposition, made him a natural for the police.

But the day came when he knew he’d had enough.

“It was during the Festival when I was assigned to the Tattoo Squad, which meant for two and a half weeks I was responsible for putting down traffic cones for the buses.

“I remember one Friday night standing at the junction next to Greyfriar’s Bobby putting down cones and it was chucking with rain.

“Just then, my mates drove past me in a car and began shouting ‘Stotty – we’re off to the pub!’ And I thought ‘I shouldn’t be doing this.’”

He knew what he should have been doing was following the showbiz dream, which he reveals hadn’t dissolved when Grant first joined Edinburgh’s Finest.

“I was first stationed in Jedburgh – I had no idea where it was and had to look it up on a map – and I got bored and within a few months I landed a job dj-ing in a nightclub in Edinburgh.

“So there I was on a Friday night secretly bolting up the A68 with a box of records in the back of my car.”

It was illegal to work outside of the police. Thankfully, Grant was only appearing in front of 2,000 nighclubbers at each gig.

“Yes, I was naïve. Then one night a hen night appeared from Jedburgh and I was reported and moved back to Edinburgh.”

And he lasted until the pivotal traffic cones incident. But sometimes it takes a little trauma to force a move.

The idea for this new touring show, which was a huge success at last summer’s Fringe Festival, came about when Andy Gray landed a role in BBC Scotland’s River City.

“It meant he couldn’t do the Festival. But then Karen Koren who runs the Golden Balloon venue said ‘You’re going to do your own show. Get writing.’

“And my wife Claire agreed it was time for me to step out on my own.”

The new show is full of radio bits in which it all went wrong. “I had all this old audio archive, the mistakes, the callers who weren’t allowed on air.

“I’ve still got the tapes of the inappropriate songs I played over my career such as appearing at a fundraising ball for Diabetes and playing the Arches hit, Sugar Sugar.

“And I do a section on the TV shows I’ve appeared on - and were killed off. I appeared on Wemyss Bay, which got the bullet, I did High Road, Fully Booked and they were dumped soon after.

“I did one episode of Jackanory, told my story and the next day the show was cancelled, after thirty five years. I appeared on Scotsport and it was ended after fifty years.”

Self-deprecation is never far from his conversational tone. He adds, laughing; “No wonder I don’t do telly anymore. And Andy Gray will be making sure I don’t get anywhere near River City.”

But he has so much else going on. Already, Grant is talking about the frocks he’ll wear when he stars in this year’s panto, Cinderella.

“I once dreamt of becoming a panto star,” he muses of growing up in Edinburgh.

“I passed by the King’s theatre on my way to drama classes when I was at school and I literally stopped and pressed my nose up against the glass to stare at the photographs.

“I could only imagine doing that every night for months and getting paid for it.”

Grant, the brother of John Leslie, with whom he starred together in panto in Glasgow in 1995, is clearly delighted with his career.

“But I’m a realist,” he offers. “I knew the time would come to leave radio and it has.”

The father-of-two adds, grinning; “ I’m getting older and the music is getting younger.”

• Tales From Behind The Mic, Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock, February 26,