It is well-known that before he became Dr Who Peter Capaldi had a lengthy track record as a comic actor, but a cutting has surfaced revealing his less documented past as a stand-up comedian.

The cutting is a review of a stand-up gig at Henry Afrika's Club in Glasgow in the Spring of 1983, which was reviewed by NME writer Andrea Miller.

Capaldi had recently appeared in the film Local Hero and Miller compared his appearance onstage to his onscreen character of Danny Oldsen (mistakenly called Jimmy in the quote): "His suit is in tatters and he has sticking plasters all over his head. He looks just the way Jimmy Oldsen would look if he was a stand-up comic."

Miller went on to describe an act that consisted mainly of extreme comedy characters. "His one man holocaust is a string of quickfire impersonations in a style that is pure vaudeville."

First up is washed up showbiz performer/loser Tony Lobotomy – "you can't humiliate me. I humiliate myself" – who ends his act by pretending to blow his brains out. His second character is a spoof preacher called "Reverend Doctor Erasmus Aaron "It Would Give Me Great Pleasure To Whip You Boy" Ku Klux Klan McReady" – "a man so poor that his childhood pet was a wart". Conclusive proof that even back in 1983 Capaldi was playing a character whose name included the word "Doctor".

Capaldi had previously supported Spandau Ballet on tour and it was at a Glasgow gig with them in 1982 that he was spotted by Local Hero director Bill Forsyth, who gave him his first big acting break. So it's fair to suggest that without doing stand-up Capaldi would have never ended up as Dr Who.

See the full NME review here. And thanks to comedy superfan Andy McHaffie for bringing this review to my attention.