THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

A bogus motivational speaker had 'em rolling in the aisles at Edinburgh - and scooped the much-coveted Perrier award. Brian Boyd is PTI'd by Chris John Jackson and his alter ego, Will Adamsdale

For every action with a reason, there are an infinite number of pointless actions. By only doing things that have a point, we limit ourselves. Take this idea as far as it can go: being pushed off a cliff is in fact attempting but failing to jump off it. We are on the ground floor of something good here.

A lot of people would view the above as being a prime example of psychobabble. It is, in fact, psychobollocks. But here's the sublime irony of the situation: the above are the words of a motivational speaker/life coach called Chris John Jackson. Jackson is American (as if you had to ask), his catchphrase is "PTI" (Push Through with Intensity), and by preaching the above to sold-out, adoring audiences, he won the Perrier Award at last year's Edinburgh Festival.

Jackson arrived at the Festival to find himself with a lousy 2.30 in the afternoon time slot for his show. In Edinburgh terms, 2.30pm is the middle of the night. He was only booked in to do seven performances of his "PTI" schtick. But something even more bizarre than Jackson's idea of a catchphrase happened midway through the week. His show got heat. The reviewer from the Scotsman newspaper gave him a rare five-out-of-five review; Jerry Springer: The Opera co-writer Stewart Lee, who was performing in the same venue, saw the show and raved about it.

In the microclimate that is the Fringe, the Scotsman review and Lee's recommendation combined to extend the run for the full month. Such was the demand for tickets that Jackson had to put on extra shows just to cater to members of the press who couldn't get seats.

On stage, Jackson - who speaks of himself in the third person - demonstrated that pointlessness could indeed be profound. (Or maybe it's the other way around. I've forgotten). He illustrated admirably how we could all learn how to PTI by asking two audience members to shout out a random word. One said "fireplace", the other "balloon".

Jackson then demonstrated how these two words could be made to rhyme. If we tried to make them rhyme and we failed, that was fine, because at least we "failed big". But if we PTI'd and got them to rhyme, that was even better. Either way, we were on the ground floor of something good.

"I've no idea where Jackson came from," says his creator, the British actor Will Adamsdale. "Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember watching one of those latenight infomercials and this guy came on talking complete nonsense about changing your life through positive thought or something like that. He was standing outside this big mansion and the phone number kept flashing up to buy his book. I remember it being quite mesmeric - in its own way.

"But I don't think that was the inspiration for the show. It was more to do with an idea of people doing something out of desperation and also the idea of how people embrace a really futile idea. And then there's the 'are they cowboys/are they geniuses' theory about these motivational speakers."

Adamsdale didn't do that much research for the role of Jackson because, as he points out, the language employed by these life coach types has now haemorrhaged into contemporary culture - it's everywhere from Sunday supplement newspaper articles about healing and positivity to the language used by human resources departments.

"I never bought one of the books," he says. "I did try to read one, but it was so boring I had to stop. You'll find if you read the blurb that's more than enough. I also tried listening to a few of these motivational tapes, but it's the same thing. It's all form and no content; there's a weird authoritarian thing going on there, and the theories these people have tend to implode on each other. It's a very strange world."

The show, called Jackson's Way, took shape at the progressive Battersea Arts Centre in London (which is run by satirist Chris Morris's brother). The Centre holds regular "Scratch Nights" where new shows can be road tested. It was where Jerry Springer: The Opera was developed.

"I've a lot to thank Stewart Lee for," says Adamsdale. "He saw it first at the BAC and then came to every show in Edinburgh. His word-of-mouth really helped. It was strange, me winning the Perrier because Stewart is famously anti-Perrier [because of Perrier's parent company, Nestlé, which controversially markets milk substitutes in African countries], so that gave the story yet another twist. I really hadn't planned to do more than seven performances and then it all got a little bit mad."

Adamsdale entered Jackson's Way into the comedy section of the Fringe programme, despite the fact he was a theatre actor who had no prior experience with comedy.

"I only put it under comedy because someone laughed at one of the early rehearsals. It did help that the show was on in the early afternoon because it's a totally different audience then the beered-up crowds who go to the big comedy shows at night. I did put it on once at midnight and it didn't work as well - everyone was pissed."

Adamsdale's Perrier win was the biggest shock in the competition's history: an actor with an afternoon show simply doesn't win the Perrier. "The comedians were very good about it," he says. "A lot of them hate the Perrier because of what it means in Edinburgh - it's a tyranny - so I think they were glad this left-field show just came from nowhere to upset everyone."

Like all Perrier winners, Adamsdale was immediately offered his own Channel 4 show. "I'm not sure about putting it on television. It's a different medium and I think people still think I'm a character comedian. I'm not. I'm an actor who plays an American motivational speaker."

On the back of the award, he was astonished to discover that he had been invited on to Celebrity Weakest Link, which he politely declined. He was perhaps even more astonished to be asked to appear in a party political broadcast for the Liberal Democrats. "It was something about me, or rather Jackson, being 'an expert in pointlessness' and something to do with people voting. I didn't do it.

"Besides, I doubt if Jackson would support the Liberal Democrats. I've a feeling all these life coach people are deeply right wing."

Jackson's Way is at The Playhouse, Derry on March 16th and The Sugar Club, Dublin on March 19th