Performer: Hardeep Singh Kohli
Photograph by: Steve Ullathorne
Show: You-topia
Venue: Assembly George Square Studios 3
Promoter: So Comedy and Broken Robot Productions

Tell me about your Edinburgh show.

YOU-topia is my excellent endeavour to create the perfect world. While all that we know, love and recognise is systematically destroyed by the powers that be, maybe someone needs to spend some time focusing less on failure and more on fun. And what could be more fun than the perfect world?

Tell me about your first gig.

I was actually making a TV doc for Ch4. It was in my hometown and I was announced onstage by the amazing Janey Godley, still one of my closest friends on the circuit. I suspect the presence of cameras encouraged much undeserved laughter….

Do you have any rituals before going on stage?

No. I now wonder whether I should?

Tell me about your best and worst review.

I don’t bother with reviews. My show is for the folk that pay to come and see it.

During this Edinburgh run, do you plan to read reviews of your show?

No

How do you feel about reviewers generally?

I have been, and still am, a critic. There’s something about comedy that engenders fierce passion and opinion; combine that with the desire to be noticed in the busy, noisy space that is Edinburgh and it makes for fun….

In April 2018, YouTube comedian, Markus Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was fined £800 for training his girlfriend’s pug dog to do a Nazi salute with its paw, in response to the phrase ‘Gas the Jews’. Do you believe Meechan committed a criminal offence, and why?   

As a graduate of Glasgow University Law School, you might be mistaken for thinking I am an expert. I think intent is hugely important in comedy; did Meechan intend to offend? Who was being ridiculed in the scenario?

We seem to have developed this spurious notion that we have no right to offend. I wonder how Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson would have been dealt had they been subject to such examination.

Are there any subjects that are not suitable for comedy?

No. Everything can be funny.

Have you ever gone too far?

Yes. It is only by transgressing and testing the boundaries that we learn where the boundaries are; bear in mind, those boundaries are ever changing

Looking back over your time as a comedian, tell me about the best gig of your career.

I haven’t done it yet….