Cornerstone of the English-speaking comedy scene in Germany, Mustafa Algiyadi talks to Katerina Partolina Schwartz about making and developing his Edinburgh Fringe debut hour, Almost Legal Alien, as well as touching on his own experience as a comic.
I really like seeing people getting what I would be talking about and just sharing an hour of laughter together
How would you summarise your show?
It’s called Almost Legal Alien, playing with the word ‘alien’ here. I speak about my experiences as a Libyan Arab who moved to Europe recently; I lived most of my life in Libya, I’m from Tripoli, and then I moved to Europe, at the beginning to the UK for one year and then I moved to Germany. And I speak about my experiences that I have had since I moved here, first with the cultural differences between the two places, the perception of what Libya is about in European society as well, and then reflect on those experiences and the differences between the two cultures. Then along the way, I speak a little bit as well about my search for a better passport than the Libyan passport, and all that comes along with it.
You have a very impressive resume; you have a PhD in math, you’ve set up a developmental aid NGO and worked as a journalist during the Arab Spring and worked in AI. Why did you choose to pursue a career in comedy?
At the moment I still work in AI as a day job, as we call it as comedians. But what is really fascinating about stand-up comedy is the connection or the speed of the connections that you can have with people, it’s much faster. For example, what I’m working on at the moment in AI, you have connection with a few people that you are interacting with, but not at the scale that you could have with stand-up comedy, obviously when things are going right, you can have a much stronger connection with people and the feedback that you get as well is more instantaneous in comparison to other things. So, with other areas, you work on something and then usually, you have a longer period of prep, and then at the end of it, there is the reward that you can get, whereas with stand-up comedy, once you do the background work of coming up with the bits, improving them and thinking about your material, when you are performing you are getting your reward instantaneously, which is very, very nice.
If it’s not too much of a spoiler, what was biggest cultural difference that you noticed?
The biggest difference is quite a difficult thing to answer, but the interesting things for me to notice is what people assume would be the biggest differences, for example drinking alcohol or not drinking alcohol or eating pork or not eating pork, not those stereotypes that everyone is aware of in terms of differences - those are usually from my experience, not the biggest differences. But basically the nuances of how smaller things are done, how do the two cultures deal with visitors - someone has a guest coming and how you welcome them to your place – how birthdays are being conducted; I have a bit about this which is very different for example how back home the process of opening the presents in front of the guests is very different than in Europe. I speak about that a little bit, and what that means between the two cultures.
Do you adapt any of your material at all depending on where you are performing?
From the get go, the way that I come up with the content and the material that when I work on it, I try to keep as universal as possible. There are a few bits that when I’m performing in one country, it obviously cannot be translated into somewhere else, so I have, for example, a few gags that are related to Germany, to the UK, that that wouldn’t fit somewhere else. Same goes with Malta, wherever you are. But there is a shared experience between many people, for example, in a place like Germany would see and perceive someone with my background, as a shared experience this is a little similar the way someone else will perceive that in the UK. And I’m speaking about that this is somehow transferable. Another thing that is also transferable, is many of the observations and interactions that one could have with people, say work culture and you hear a comment from a colleague, and that situation becomes awkward. I have a bit about that actually in the show. And I think this would apply regardless of where you are in the world.
How would you describe your comedy style and how did you come to the point where you decided it was right for you?
There was no decision in the sense of, “Ah yeah, this is the style that I should stick with,” it’s more of a letting it be and see what actually surfaces. And many people – or many comedians – say that you start with the first set that you do onstage is usually the closest that you can get to being yourself and then after that you start modulating yourself because you are thinking about how you should do things and what are the best practices, so you are getting further away from your actual self, till you reach a point that you need to go back to it. For me, I’m trying to keep it as natural as possible, natural as in true to myself. What I like to do is observational comedy, I like the gags that would be relatable to people. Obviously, you encounter things from day to day as experiences. The weird situations, strange interactions that you have with people are usually the things where I draw my bits from so it’s more observational. And the part of it with crowd work is a bit conversational, so I interact with the audience and then I try to weave in whatever they answer into my routine.
What are you looking forward to the most about making your debut at the Fringe?
I’m looking forward to sharing my jokes with as many people as possible; I really like seeing people getting what I would be talking about and just sharing an hour of laughter together. The other thing that I’m really somehow looking forward to is seeing as many other shows as possible, I mean the Fringe just offers so much creativity in such a confined place, and space and time, and I think once you get into the rhythm of it, watching many shows, somehow you are just breathing creativity at some point, and I’m looking forward to being immersed in such an environment.
