Leo Kearse's new stand-up show, Right Wing Comedian, is on at Espionage - Pravda during August.

  • What is your Fringe show about?

My show is club comedy about being right-wing. I try to create a safe space where people can admit to having mainstream political beliefs - some diversity in the sea of soggy arsed Cobynista lefty virtue signalling at the Fringe. I say virtue signalling - I’ve never seen the virtue in stealing wealth from its creators and handing it to lazy people, or encouraging people to be fat, or criticising people for being born white and male. I take a scalpel to male feminists, Labour antisemites, fat activists, environmentalists, male privilege and #MeToo. I defend Donald Trump, celebrate consumerism, break down prejudice against the white working class and show the inherent immorality and impracticality of socialism.

  • How many times/many years have you appeared at the Fringe?

This is my eighth fringe in a row. I wasn’t really trying to be good at comedy up until a couple of years ago.

  • What’s your most memorable moment from the Fringe?

I was in a burger place and a chair gave way under a body-positive woman. She fell backwards onto the floor. Nothing a comedian will ever write will be as funny as a healthy-at-any-size person’s chair shattering and them falling on their beach-body-ready arse and dropping their chips. Even she was laughing, it was brilliant.

  • What’s the worst thing about the Fringe?

In the 90s, properly funny club comics like Frank Skinner and Tommy Tiernan won Perrier awards. Now the awards panel pass over club comics in favour of posh kids spending their parent’s money playing dressup at the Pleasance.

Stick a papier mache lobster on your head and prance around singing in Esperanto and you’re guaranteed a nomination and a run at the Soho Theatre. Bizarrely, the most revered comedians in the world - Chris Rock, Bill Burr - are club comedians performing thoughtful, socially aware, accessible comedy. In the UK we’ve got a thriving club scene but our club comics don’t get much respect from the industry. Also, there’s so little diversity at the Fringe. I mean there’s diversity of skin tone, gender, sexual preference, but very little diversity of opinion. And the weather is crap. Can’t we have the world’s biggest arts festival somewhere sunny, like Magaluf?

If you were not a performer what would you be doing?

My last proper job was as a consultant in government and policing (hence my firm belief in smaller, less wasteful government). I worked for organisations like the Met Police and Foreign Office, doing things like improving the way they handled intelligence. It was well paid and fairly interesting compared to most jobs so I’d still be doing that if I hadn’t got addicted to comedy.

  • How do you prepare for a performance?

I put on my gig shoes and change into my gig shirt. You’ve got to take a change of clothes and shoes to a gig, the promoter will subconsciously think you’re more professional. I’m disgusted at the slobbishness of some comedians, rolling onto stage wearing dirty trainers, tracksuit bottoms and a scruffy t-shirt. It’s showbusiness. People have paid for tickets and come for a night out, show them some respect. You wouldn’t catch a symphony orchestra dressed like crap. Then I put all the stuff in my pockets in my bag so that nobody’s looking at me wondering “what’s he got in his pockets?” instead of listening to me. It’s weird the things that can distract people from watching the person on stage - if someone comes through a door, everyone turns to watch them walk through. Maybe my next show will just be me walking through doors.

All my mates are there so we get to go for a pint.

  • What’s the most Scottish thing you’ve ever done?

I had a full on fight with one of my mates on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. A circle of people gathered around us to watch like in a Jean Claude Van Damme film. I remember I was trying to knee my friend in the head and his girlfriend jumped on my back screaming “NOT THE FACE!! NOT THE FACE!!” hahahaha. The next day his face was all swollen up. Neither of us can remember what we were fighting about.

  • Favourite Scottish food/drink?

People always talk about deep fried Mars Bars, but they’re actually delicious. For pure insane Scottishness you need to eat a deep fried pizza. What we do is we get a cheap supermarket pizza, put cooked chips on top of it, fold it in half - so you’ve got a sort of chip calzone going on - then batter it and deep fry it. And you know what it’s served with? Chips. Not even a sprig of parsley on this thing. Insanity. They were going to do a series of Man Vs Food in Scotland but it was pretty obvious food would’ve just killed that guy.

  • Sum up your show in three words

Antagonistic unfashionable truth

Show summary

Scottish Comedian of the Year, Leo Kearse returns with the follow up to I Can Make You Tory. Poking fun at liberal sanctimony and hypocrisy, Leo takes on millennials, #metoo, environmentalists and Jeremy Corbyn, showing why socialists are selfish and Trump is great. 

Leo Kearse's new stand-up show, Right Wing Comedian, is on at Espionage - Pravda during August. For tickets, please visit www.edfringe.com