Derek Mitchell’s viral spoofs of Dutch culture come to the Fringe

Comedian Derek Mitchell, who has appeared on Apple TV’s Ted Lasso and whose online sketches have generated over 250 million views, is bringing his hotly anticipated debut hour of stand-up and characters Double Dutch to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August.

Right off the back of a 44-date European tour, the show is about how when we initially meet someone, we get the conversation going by making assumptions about each other – from our identities, backgrounds and experiences. Double Dutch showcases big, bold characters and accents, highlighting the funny things about people and their behaviours that happen every day, but maybe go unnoticed. From the way that immigrants turn into manic pixie dream girls in airports to middle-aged women compulsively confessing dark sexual secrets to gay men in airplanes. Or how men of all ages have been turning to AI for romantic gratification since Leonardo da Vinci first put pencil to notebook to draw a robot with a dick and balls.

Double Dutch means gibberish – it was coined because English people in the 15th century couldn’t understand Dutch people. Because Dutch really does sound like English backwards and upside down. To add insult to incomprehensibility, Dutch people always say what they’re thinking because they are blisteringly honest and have no shame, which is horrifying to English people because they have so much shame. Americans meanwhile have no shame but only tell you what you want to hear and never the truth – sometimes to disastrous effect. When these forces combine, things quickly descend into hilarious gibberish – which is why Dutchness, Englishness and Americanness are the primary cultural colours Derek uses to build worlds in his standup.