list.co.uk/festival Andrew Doyle | FESTIVAL COMEDY

This year’s Fringe programme features a raft of comics from all over the world. Jay Richardson profi les ve intriguing

talents from this very continent

YACINE BELHOUSSE Lately supporting Eddie Izzard on tour, Parisian comic Yacine Belhousse specialises in ‘surreal stand-up based on everyday life. I start with a simple idea and digress. I’ll always tell a story and sometimes play with dialogue or characters, like say, a chicken, or weirder things like a living purple puddle from outer space.’ After learning English from movies and music, he absorbed the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle and Futurama: ‘but my major inspiration comes from Monty Python. And of course, Eddie Izzard as far as stand-up is concerned’. Sharing his ‘English-speaking adventure’, Belhousse will also be challenging a few myths about his home city ‘without all the romantic clichés. And about my school, cheeseburgers, butterl ies and dragons’. Rather brilliantly, this self-confessed geek also has his own computer game, where players must move from writing a show to performing it. In between, they must attract a crowd in Pigalle, Paris’ notorious red light district. ‘You have to i nd them while avoiding the sex-shop owner who steals your audience, and the junkies who make them run away,’ he relates with Gallic insouciance. Yacine Belhousse: Made in France, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 2–25 Aug (not 17), 9.30pm, £8–£10.50 (£7–£9.50). Previews 30 Jul–1 Aug, £6.

TOBIAS PERSSON In vitro fertilisation might seem like a cold, clinical and invasive subject for stand-up. But as Tobias Persson explains, his show is about ‘the basic human struggle to achieve a goal. Discussing life, death, money, love, marriage etc. Though I might have the inevitable knob gag.’

Resisting any urge to ‘write a soppy American “cliffhanger” show where I cry at the end’, the Swede is pleased to acknowledge that he is the father of twins. ‘Playing the UK once a month is way too little for me. As I’m established in Sweden and get some nice TV and radio work, I just can’t say no and drop it all for a ten-minute spot in Middlesbrough. I did that for i ve years anyway.’ All the same, he’s really acclimatised since making his British debut in 2009. ‘I would be happy to live in a cellar in Camden and just do the UK clubs forever for a plate of chips.’

Religion, as ever, is a preoccupation. ‘At the time we started with IVF, I became interested in Darwin, Hitchens and atheism. Looking back I i nd it weird that I was so into evolution and accepting nature, while at the same time, my wife and I were desperately trying to create life in a lab!’ Tobias Persson: One Thing Led to a Mother, The Stand V, 558 7272, 1–24 Aug (not 11), 10.30pm, £8 (£7). Preview 30 Jul, £7 (£6).

ZERO GROUND Julian Hall chats to Roxette fan Andrew Doyle about some of his least favourite things

Returning to the Fringe this year, actor, writer and comedian Andrew Doyle will wear two hats. The former teacher brings his stand-up show, Zero Tolerance (his third

solo hour), and Outings, a play based on real-life LGBT coming-out stories. ‘The festival’s a bit of a marathon and

I’ve never done two shows at the Fringe, so I intend to take things easy: I’ll only be drinking white wine, which is healthiest of all the toxins.’

When it comes to juggling the disciplines, Doyle professes that switching from one to the other is not too taxing: ‘Stand-up’s just another form of theatre, really. The major difference is that people tend to forget that you’re playing a character, and in stand-up people sometimes shout at the performer, which isn’t something you see often at the theatre. Try heckling during King Lear and see what happens.’ Doyle’s stand-up show this year is

all about intolerance and, in particular, exploring the views of those he doesn’t agree with to give them a fair hearing. ‘I think it’s always useful to consider the alternative view. Those on the left have a tendency to dismiss those on the right as evil or seli sh, rather than engaging with the arguments. It’s a major failing, and it partly explains UKIP’s recent success in the European elections. That said, I don’t think I could ever vote Tory or UKIP. I’m quite set in my ways. I prefer actual books to a Kindle. I’ve got a Hotmail account. I still listen to Roxette. It would take a lot to change me.’ As you can probably tell, it’s not just

lofty subjects that get the Zero Tolerance treatment, with Doyle admitting that among his own personal intolerances are ‘sentimentality, bad grammar, sunburn, the use of the acronym LOL, Christmas, Richard Littlejohn, tealights, crème de menthe. Oh, and the Isle of Wight. I just i nd it so unnecessary.’ Andrew Doyle: Zero Tolerance, The Stand III & IV, 558 7272, 1–24 Aug (not 11), 9.20pm, £8 (£7). Preview 30 Jul, £7 (£6).

31 Jul–7 Aug 2014 THE LIST FESTIVAL 33