Award-winning comedian and proud Brit, Raul Kohli is the son of a Hindu Indian and a Sikh Singaporean, raised in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where his best friend was a Pakistani Muslim. He has lived in every corner of the nation and is fascinated by the diversity of this small island. Imagine his surprise to hear from politicians and the media that multiculturalism has failed.
Q&A with Raul Kohli
How does it feel to be returning to Edinburgh Fringe?
Exciting. Things tend to get hectic before the fringe for me. I start to readjust from living a pretty normal and exciting life to suddenly spending hot sweltering days sitting inside on your laptop going over the same things over & over can send you a little bit crazy. But by the time August rolls around and you’re selling well, and making rooms full of people laugh at the World’s biggest arts festival in the World, you really see how privileged you are.
What can you tell us about your show and its inspiration?
It’s called Raul Britannia. It’s asking what it means to be British in 2024. It’s personal & political at the same time drawing on my multicultural upbringing in Newcastle while tying that into many political issues at the minute. I don’t agree that we should hate Britain, I think we should celebrate its successes while also scrutinising & seeking to improve its blindspots. It feels everybody has shifted further towards the extreme of whatever they originally believed & I’m just trying to remind everyone that there is a balance to be achieved when reflecting on this great nation of ours. Doing this at a festival in a country that continuously tries to leave this nation is albeit not my wisest idea. But there is only one Britain, & only one Edinburgh Fringe.
How do you think audiences will react to the show?
So far the reactions have been brilliant to the previews. And So I’m excited to take it up to Edinburgh and see the reaction there. I just hope the right people see it & realise the political salience of it.
How have you been preparing for the festival?
Luckily the Brighton Fringe was only a month ago so I was just working & reworking it there. I’ve had Dec Munroe provide an outside eye. And A week full of previews coming up. So just focusing on the material. Cutting what may be dated or does not need to be there. And getting myself in good healthy behaviours before the stimulus overload that is the Edinburgh Fringe.
Will you get a chance to enjoy the rest of the festival?
No. I have two separate hours to do a day. Followed by compilation shows, PR stuff & all that. I may also have to start recording my NUFC podcast again so I’ll probably get to see 1, maybe 2 shows. For me personally it’s best not to watch too many shows anyway. I just try to focus on what I’m doing as opposed to what other people are. It’s a journey, not a competition etc.
Do you have any Fringe anecdotes you can share with us?
The very first fringe I did, I reached the semi final of the So You Think You’re Funny. I was allowed into the loft bar as all the competitors were without a pass. I had heard it was the VIP bar. A friend of mine who used to work there said he saw Hugh Grant there once. As soon as I walked in, the first person I saw was Gerard Butler. Makes sense, he’s a Scottish actor right? I ran over, and asked him for a picture. I told him I was such a big fan. And he was so receptive. I left the conversation by embarrassingly saying (Spartans, what is your profession? Awoo, Awoo, Awoo). The next day hungover, I looked at my picture to see it wasn’t Gerard Butler, but a very convincing Scottish lookalike. Years later, I saw the same man in the loft bar. I went over & explained the story asking if he remembered. Not only had he remembered, but he explained, he’d just got a 5* review that made him think he was being recognized for the first time, but upon the ‘Spartans, what is your profession’, he realised what had happened, & even wrote a poem about it. He gave me a signed copy of his new poem book with a poem about our interaction in it.
Raul Kohli: Raul Britannia is at Just the Tonic at Cabaret Voltaire from 1 to 25 August 2024
