Odd gig in Iceland

American comic Doug Stanhope will play his next major gig  in an Icelandic maximum security prison.

The Mayor of Reykjavik, comedian Jon Gnarr, has arranged for Stanhope to perform to inmates in Litla-Hraun on September 25, following his 25-date London run.

Stanhope said: ‘I've finally landed a gig in Iceland where I've always wanted to go. Bingo.

‘So, if you're in Iceland and want to go to the show, you have a couple of months to get convicted of something and then you'll be able to see me absolutely free.’

He added that he would only ever play Iceland at the prison, in an attempt to create a ‘Doug Stanhope Defence’ where defendants could claim that they only committed the crime to get into his show. ‘That would amuse the shit out of me,’ he said. ‘I have very little ego about all the trappings of this silly life but a few things still make me smile.

‘About five or six people that I know of now have either my name, face, a cartoon of me or my autograph tattooed on them. That is endlessly funny to me. I have a standing request when anyone I know tells me they are pregnant - that if the baby is horrifically deformed to the point it could get freak show work, they have to name it Doug Stanhope. That hasn't happened yet.

‘But if you get sent to prison in Iceland just to see my show at the end of September, I will tattoo your name on my weathered body somewhere. Because that would be funny as shit.’ 

Stanhope is no strager to bleak Nordic venues. His DVD, Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere, which was released this week, was recorded in an abandoned sewing machine factory and German war bunker in the Grünerløkka suburb of Oslo.

Published: 3 Aug 2011