JOHN SMEATON was a knockout on his Edinburgh Festival debut.
The Glasgow Airport hero had the picky Fringe audience eating out of his hand on the opening night of his hilarious An Audience With… show.
Smeato talked them through his meteoric rise from baggage handler to superstar.
They giggled about his meetings with Gordon Brown, the Queen and Billy Connolly.
And laughed out loud at his indecent proposal from two randy air stewardesses.
The Scottish Sun columnist also ‘set aboot’ George Burley.
Smeato said: “When Scotland played Norway last year I was in a coma. When Norway humped us last week I wished I was in a coma again.”
But it was the tales from the baggage hall which really had the crowd in stitches.
He recalled the time he reversed a luggage truck into two push-bikes waiting to be loaded on a flight, and bent them round a lamp-post.
Smeato confessed: “I felt rotten, but I still put them on the plane to Spain so the Spanish baggage handlers would get the blame.”
He also warned the crowd never to put a ‘fragile’ sticker on their bags, as they’re just asking for trouble from ham-fisted handlers.
However, the biggest laugh was for the tale about two airport new starts told to take a coffin to cargo, and they put it in baggage reclaim instead.
John told the crowd: “The body is going round the luggage carousel with the family waiting to collect it – and it’s too big to fit on a trolley.”
Talking of stiffs, the only downside was Smeato’s straight man Arnold Brown.
The 73-year-old comic is a past winner of the Festival’s coveted Perrier Award, but the fizz has long since gone out his act.
Arnold’s job was to chair the evening, but he struggled to keep up with the quick wit of Smeato and the rapid-fire questions from the 150-strong, sell-out crowd.
There were plenty of poignant moments too, including doctors giving John just four hours to live after a massive asthma attack last October.
He also spoke of his love for his ‘ultra feminist’ American wife Christy.
Smeato proved he has what it takes to carry the show without Arnold – it’s time to ditch the excess baggage.