Beginning his comedy journey a mere two and a half years ago, Fab Goualin is definitely a star on the rise.
During that time, the BBC New Comedy Award 2025 finalist has been focusing on crafting his debut stand up show, Mixed Messages, and now he’s finally ready to unveil it at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I wanted to know how he was feeling ahead of his first Fringe run and how his new show had come together.
“I’m super excited. You know what? I thought I had got the show started off with a bang back in January and I felt like I had pretty much a full show but then, slowly but surely, I thought ‘nah, it’s nowhere near ready, half of this stuff is not gonna work.’ And then you sort of start panicking. I had that about a month ago. But now I’m raring to go.
I think when people go up to Edinburgh with a show with a narrative and an arc, people see that as pretentious, but that is necessary for Edinburgh because you’ve got people in rooms watching people that they’ve oftentimes never heard of and they need something to latch onto. While more seasoned established comedians can get away with jokes unrelated to one another, when you’re up and coming I think you have a duty to tell a story. It’s a different set of rules for us at the bottom.”
But what exactly is the show about?
“The pithiest way to describe the show is that it’s about being mixed race, middle class and misunderstood. It’s about some of the intricacies that come with having multiple identities, which I know sounds kind of worthy, but I promise you it is funny.”
“I want the show to be thought-provoking, but I don’t want people coming away from the show feeling it was too heavy. Or feeling any guilt. And that’s not to trivialise anything that’s in the show, but ultimately it is a comedy show.”
Fab’s perspective on the world, being of both French and Nigerian descent, is perhaps even more unique than many other comedians. I wondered if this sort of mixed cultural identity was a gift to mine comedic material from?
“I think I’m spoilt with the kind of background that I’ve got. There’s a juxtaposition that comes from having those different identities and that different kind of cultural background, especially growing up in London and travelling loads, ‘cos my mum loves travelling. We went around the world, which we were very fortunate to do. I’ve always had a grasp on the differences between cultures. I really am a student of culture. So being able to kind of channel that in my comedy has been a no brainer.
I’m trying to come at it with a fresh view, an original view. I guess everybody fucking says that. I’m telling real life stories. Every story I tell in the show actually happened, but then you’ve got to find the funny. How I do that is I write the story out and then see where the comedy is. A story can be objectively funny but if you tell it on stage verbatim as it happened, it’s not funny.You have to turn it into stand up. But that’s the fun part.
I think that every comedian thinks that they’re unique in some way, shape, or form. You’ve got to be. Especially because there’s so many comedians out there. You’ve got to have something different and interesting to say. Everyone’s got interesting stories to tell, but I like to think that mine are that little bit more interesting,” he laughs.
Fab started performing comedy just over two and half years ago back in November 2023. Before that he was a DJ and worked within the music industry. I wondered what led him to performing comedy in the first place?
“I lost my dream job. But I got another job and whilst I was in that job I MC’d at a friend’s wedding. And everyone was like ‘do you do stand up, do you do comedy?’ And I was like ‘me? No, no no!’ Then I lost that second job and afterwards I was like ‘I need to do something different.’ A couple of weeks later, I was doing an open mic. I’m really dogged. I get really obsessive about anything I start doing. So as soon as I started doing comedy I was like a dog with a bone and just kept on going.”
“I feel like loads of things have led me to doing comedy. After I lost that second job, I’d recently started cycling and that meant I could do comedy because I could get around everywhere on my bike for free and do this thing without spending any money and it also gave me real focus in a difficult time.
You get to a certain age and you think that there’s nothing that I want out there that I haven’t already thought of. But then comedy just happened. It was so weird. That wedding had happened. And I’d moved into a new flat and I was doing it up on my own. So I’d be listening to things. But music was getting me down because I’d been working in it before, so listening to new music was kind of like triggering almost. So I started listening to podcasts, but I kind of ran out of podcasts. So then I started listening to comedy. Old comedy. Comedy I hadn’t heard in a while. Comedy I’d never listened to before. And I thought, maybe I could do this. And I can tell you hand on heart, if I had not lost those jobs, I would not be doing comedy.”
Was he influenced by anybody?
“I’m not that much of a student of comedy, funnily enough. I love comedy. Like, I don’t have comedy idols. There’s things that I really like and respect, but I don’t have comedy idols, which has meant that with me developing my voice, without sounding too grandiose, I like to think that it really is me. I don’t really model my comedy on anybody else. I also never did a course, which I’m really glad about. They’re amazing, but I’m the sort of person who, if I’d done a course, I’d always be thinking about the disciplines that come with the course, all the stuff I’d learned on the course. I sort of just try and squeeze out something funny, put a punchline in there, do what feels right. That’s what’s made this process interesting actually. I’ve got to sit down, write something down, and really build material, which is something I haven’t really done before.
It’s been a super fun process. I’ve loved every moment. Well, not every moment. I’ve loved about half the moments.”
For somebody who has struggled to find their place in the world, it seems that comedy has given him Fab ability to do just that. He didn’t go out looking for it. It found him.
“That’s gonna be the second show!”
Well, I, for one, will be eagerly looking out for it.
words Danny Lamb
