Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

There must be some cheap way of getting in and out of the Netherlands that I’m not aware of, because Derek Mitchell is one of a growing number of comedians to be based in Holland while still maintaining a regular presence on the UK comedy circuit.

He’s also one of the only ones to be weaponising it – after growing up in Illinois he moved to the Netherlands with a Dutch husband and then studied in the UK, giving him an interesting outsider perspective on at least three cultures. He’s built that perspective into a respectable online following, with videos in character (and in English) as a blunt Dutchman.

Double Dutch is one of two shows that he’s bringing to his debut Fringe – the other is the emo character monologue Goblin – and is the more conventional introductory hour, although it subtly swerves a few expectations of how you think it’s going to pan out.

Dressed in full Dutch milkmaid attire with painted wooden clogs, he sets us up for an hour of comedy about cultural differences, but after a few 'Dutch people do X but British people do Y' gags (which admittedly always go down a storm), the remit quickly expands and the obvious joke formats drop away. Mitchell then ventures into a much wider-ranging exploration of how identities – national, sexual and personal – are formed and expressed.

It’s just as well that he moves beyond cultural comparisons with relative speed because, as he cops to early on: 'Dutch has a weak brand.'  A lot of UK audiences just don’t have the requisite cultural touchstones to laugh at Dutch people in the same way they would for say, Tatty Macleod’s depiction of France. 

So Mitchell’s observations are generally informative rather than familiar, which is still interesting to watch but perhaps less immediately funny. Luckily, his more personal material about finding a place in the world has plenty of laughs, primarily due to his confident performance style. Lithe and perceptive, he brings a serpentine quality to his base layer of camp, and he’s a marvellous mimic.

 One of the great pleasures of this show is listening to him slide fluidly between his Dutch, American and British accents, each of which is flawless and seems to perfectly express a facet of the whole.

Review date: 2 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard