Meet the comedian: Derek Mitchell
Asking comedians the 5 essential questions in culture
Welcome to our weekly feature for premium subscribers, where we have a really quick chat with a comedian you might have come across in LMAOnaise before. We want you to get to know the people whose shows we recommend a little better, so we’ve had them answer five of the most pressing questions in culture at the moment.
What will you be resurrected as?
Probably as a reptile, because I love them! Interesting fact about me: I don’t care about cats and dogs. If you point out a cat or dog with excitement, I will reciprocate but this is just masking due to social pressure. My whole family is allergic to cats and dogs, so I did not grow up with them. People sometimes, somehow interpret this to mean that I wish cats and dogs harm. Au contraire! I hope they have a beautiful life. But I don’t need to be a part of it. A snake or a turtle on the other hand? Would love to give that little critter a cuddle.
Who would be the best people to do a heist with and why?
Probably librarians. They are very organised and very quiet and would probably have a great plan for how to carry it out that minimises mess and harm. Also nobody uses libraries anymore (genuinely sobbing as I write this) so they will have a lot of time to plan the heist, and could probably also use the money!
What is Stonehenge?
Stonehenge is a tricky one. A lot of people believe that Stonehenge is a neolithic site featuring stones from miles away situated in an extremely precise formation in line with the cardinal directions and the rotation of the earth around the sun. Not true! It’s just a pile of stones. It’s like that thing where your brain tells you you’re seeing a face in a tree but it’s obviously just some leaves. Guys, CHILL OUT. They are rocks. Did you ever see Meryl Streep act? Now THAT’S an unexplainable wonder of the world.
Sharks: explain
One million years ago, sharks were in the running for most adorable animal, alongside slow loris, sugar glider, puffin and dolphin. They were genuinely neck and neck. But then unfortunately sharks got really cocky and assumed they’d win, and during the break while the judges (mermaids) deliberated, the sharks went and ate a bunch of seals and then they were disqualified. And to be honest? They could have still really gotten away with being seen as the cheeky kind of bad-boys of the ocean (raccoons are this on land), but they were such sore losers that that’s how they secured their reputation for being scary as hell.
If you could design a new national/international holiday, what would it be?
Everybody Take a Break From Harming Each Other Day. Would love this holiday! I think it would give us lots of time to, you know, get some admin/emailing done, maybe file our tax returns, even go to a corporate event and do some networking. I would love for all conflict to stop for ONE day of the year basically so I can focus on girlbossing hard and selling some water bottles that I painted (marble glazing) on TikTok. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Is there anyone quite as versatile as Derek Mitchell? Who can go from American emo teen to Dutch government worker and back again? Literally not one other person! Before the last Edinburgh Fringe, I already knew that Derek was amazing (I know things!) but that confirmed it to a new degree.
It always blows my mind that anyone can manage to do more than one run of simultaneous shows at the Fringe, but there was plenty more to contend with when staging both Goblin and Double Dutch, not least the roof of the former’s yurt venue collapsing halfway through.
This is one of the reasons I’m happy that Derek is bringing Goblin back to Edinburgh in August – it is too good a show not to get the Full Fringe Experience. The other reason is that it placed in my personal top five as a remarkable piece of work and I need more people to be talking about it. I predict this year, they will be, especially as it moves into the more theatrical Summerhall space and I believe has been developed over the last year. It tells the story of an emo kid called Eliot who is looking to be loved. He treats the audience as his confidant as he gets into a relationship with an older reality TV star and starts to change. It’s a marvel, both extremely expressive and horrifying at the same time.
ON THE FLIP SIDE, being completely un-horrifying (pull quote for you there), Double Dutch is a more stand-up based showcase of Derek’s joke-writing skills and physical comedic abilities. It also builds on an extremely successful online platform chronicling life in the Netherlands from an innumerable series of different characters.
You can read my reviews of both shows here.
If you don’t know Derek yet, you absolutely should, and if you want to get to know Goblin better, you could read the main feature he, Eliot himself, wrote for our first print paper (we still have limited stock of issue 1 available in the LMAOnaise Starter Pack in our online shop)!
I URGE you to see both Goblin and Double Dutch at any opportunity. They’re so different, and together are such an incredible illustration of what Derek can do.
Derek Mitchell is bringing Goblin back to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, 9:50pm, Jul 31st-Aug 24th, at Summerhall. Tickets here. You can also follow Double Dutch on Instagram here.
Have a top weekend! Drink lots of water. Sit in the shade. Don’t overdo it.
love you,
Zoë x