Comedian Aidan Greene on how stand-up has helped him embrace his stutter
Thanks in no small part to the one-trick comic exploits of a pants-less cartoon pig, stutterers have become the butt of far too many jokes. As he explains in this self-penned piece, comedian Aidan Greene is on a mission to change perceptions of the speech condition, through the power of stand-up.
When I first developed my stutter at four years old, I wasn’t fazed. I was an unusually confident child. As families so often do, mine likes to trade in childhood memories I have absolutely no defence against. For instance, they swear that one day I toddled up to my mother and asked, 'Isn’t God great?' When she asked what brought that on, I apparently replied, 'Because he made me perfect,' and happily wandered off. Clearly, at the age of four I was not concerned about my stutter; this was helped considerably by the fact that the only person I knew with a stutter was me, and I thought I was pretty cool.
You can imagine my shock when I encountered my first non-Aidan stutterer: a pants-less cartoon pig called Porky Pig. If you’re not aware of Porky Pig, or his work, he was famously a teammate of Michael Jordan on the Tune Squad in 1996. Porky is kind of a one-trick pig. Every joke involving Porky results in laughter at the expense of his stutter. It’s a simple structure: Porky stutters on a word then replaces it with a longer word without any issue. Since I was the only stutterer I knew I didn’t even realise this was a joke.
Enjoying The Scotsman's coverage of the Edinburgh festivals? For just £2 a month you can get unlimited access to scotsman.com plus 2-for-1 Fringe tickets. For details visit www.scotsman.com/subscriptions
Two years later Adam Sandler took the Porky Pig joke and ran with it. In The Waterboy Sandler plays a socially inept waterboy. The character is portrayed as being unintelligent and to really get this point across Sandler gave him a stutter. Every joke is laughing at the stutter. After this, I noticed that people were treating me differently. From here, my views about myself were starting to change. I wasn’t cool anymore; I was a punchline.
Every stutterer I saw in media reinforced this idea. For example, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Professor Quirrell convinces people he is timid and harmless by faking a stutter. The fact that people dismissed him because of the stutter was never questioned.
As for my own journey, I attended speech therapy from the age of six until the age of 12. After my final session my speech therapist told my mother that I would stutter for the rest of my life.
My parents, as a result, were understandably concerned about my stutter, but I can’t fault them for being anxious. Just like me they had only ever seen the negative stereotypes (see Porky Pig and Quirrell). They also saw me change from that cocky child who thought he was perfect to a teenager who was scared to leave the house. In hope, they took me to every sort of possible “remedy” or “cure.” I had it all: Reflexology. Hypnotherapy. Even the Catholic cure for stuttering that somehow ended with me getting essentially motorboated by a pensioner (long story).
Obviously, none of these “cures” work. One in five kids will have a speech impediment by the age of four. One in 20 of those will continue to stutter into adulthood. I’m in that one per cent. Personally, I would have preferred being part of the one perfect hoarding all the world’s wealth rather than hoarding all the syllables.
What these “cures” reinforced was the idea that having a stutter meant that I was broken and needed to be fixed. You certainly don’t try to cure something that people see as a positive. For years I internalised negative perceptions and treated my stutter as a problem to be solved. I see a direct correlation between the negative representations in the media and my growing shame.
What all those portrayals had in common was that none of them came from someone who actually stuttered. Representation matters because it shapes the stories that we tell ourselves. If I had seen a positive authentic portrayal of stuttering growing up my own relationship with my stutter might have been completely different.
Through stand-up comedy I was able to change my own perception of stuttering. I was able to show myself that I could make people laugh with me and not at my stutter. It’s why I made my short film Stutterbug. It’s why I wrote my 2026 Edinburgh Fringe show Stuttermilk Pancakes. Maybe a kid who stutters will get to see me on stage this August rather than a pants-less cartoon pig.
Aidan Greene: Stuttermilk Pancakes, Underbelly Bristo Square Dexter, 5.45pm, until 31 August
The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today
Enjoying the Arts & Culture journalism on scotsman.com? Make it easier to find by selecting us as a preferred Google source
Want the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.