10 life lessons I learned from Batman

Oh, Batman, you and me have had some great times together. I dressed up as you for Halloween aged four and only answered to the names The Bat James, The Dark James or, my personal favourite, The Caped Crus-Jamer. I had my sexual awakening in 1997 reading the description of Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy in the junior novelisation of the film Batman & Robin (this was years before broadband – Channel 5 had only just started up – it was a simpler time for pre-pubescent boys). I didn’t eat for a week after I spent half my student loan on a PlayStation 4 and the Arkham Asylum and Lego Batman games.

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But through our time together, not only have you provided hours of entertainment, you have also taught me many important life lessons; lessons that I will remember should the day ever come that I abandon my career as a nerd-orientated fringe comedy performer/part-time barman to fight crime across the mean middle-class streets of Edinburgh. I’ve already got my own superpower – an MA in musical theatre – and my mum has made me a phenomenal costume. Now all I need to do is stick to the 10 essential Bat lessons for working as a vigilante hero:

• Never attend a fancy charity benefit party – chances are a costumed criminal will crash it halfway through and throw your girlfriend out of a 10-storey window.
• Never use guns – do more humane things with criminals like break their limbs and throw them into a tub of acid.
• The best way to fix a broken back is by doing topless push ups. Just ask Christian Bale in The Dark Knight Rises.
• A strong jawline is a valuable asset. I use mine to cut cheese and open beer bottles.
• Always carry a variety of sprays in your utility belt to ward off criminals – anti-shark spray, anti-death spray, anti-spray spray etc.
• If you turn an image of a skyscraper on its side while holding a rope, you will look like you are climbing up a building. Perfect when on a fringe budget.

• Always disguise your real voice in public, even when talking to yourself.
• Kiss from a Rose by Seal is the most romantic song of all time.
• When hiring a sidekick, make sure they have a decent ability to repeat plot points, spout random puns and get injured instead of you.
• Most importantly: never reveal your secret identity. No one knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne. Well except Robin, Alfred the Butler, Superman, Lois Lane, Harold the Mute Mechanic who works in the bat cave, Sherlock Holmes, the Riddler, President JFK … actually, scratch that last lesson.

• James Wilson-Taylor’s show Bat-Fan is at the Pleasance Courtyard, 3.30pm, 5-30 August (not 17).