Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone catches up with Australian stand-up comedian Yianni Agisilaou who takes a moment out of his day in between gigging and touring to answer a few questions.

He’s been called “the next best thing”, received high accolades from seasoned performer Sean Meo (and fellow-comedians are often the sternest critics), and gets rave reviews on UK comedymagazine Chortle.

I’m looking forward to getting back to Gozo, the place that sounds like a James Bond super-villain

Yet Yianni was set on another career path before he foundhis calling: “It happened overthe course of my first yearpractising law.”

The decision wasn’t a difficult one: “About a week after I started, I realised I wanted to do comedy.”

That was 12 years ago. His comedy career took him from Australia to the UK, where he worked the London circuit, and became an Edinburgh regular.

While Yianni’s influences helped to develop his style, they furthered his quest for his own particular attitude and voice, which emerged more and more definitively.

He is candid about his development: “I went through a real Eddie Izzard phase about three years after I started doing comedy. I watch clips of myself from then and think ‘Yianni, be yourself’.

“So as far as influences go, hopefully there are less and less of them as I think developing as a comedian is a process of becoming more and more yourself on stage.”

His influences reflect his varied interests, in strikingly singular fashion: “That said, people who have influenced my act and worldview along the way are people like Eddie Izzard, Daniel Kitson, Dylan Moran, Alan Watts, Carl Jung, Woody Allen and Daniel Tosh.”

Does he draw upon personal experience when writing hismaterial?

“Whether it’s a first-hand story or an observation on something that you saw or heard, everything is personal, I guess. But if you’re asking whether I’m more of a traditional storyteller, I would say no. I’m more someone who talks about ideas, beliefs, the way we see the world. My stories involve our mental processes.”

Indeed, besides the standard circuit venues, Yianni has also been on the bill at events like the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, in showsthat interweave comedy with an interest in science.

He observes that comedy may be very effective as a means of dealing with difficult concepts – “not for everyone though, some people can’t see past the jokes. But for explaining a difficult concept it can definitely work if you find the right analogy”. And of course, finding the right analogy helps hit the right note in keeping the comedy entertaining.

As a comedy-writer, he is rarely fully off-duty, always alert tocatch that odd spark; ideas aretriggered by conversations,and developed later: “most of it is written in conversation with people. We’ll be talking about something, either I or someone else will say something funny and I will write it down.”

It involves a process of rigorous editing and selection:

“Often if I’m at home with people I know well I’ll record our conversations then go through them later and pick out the bits that might work well on stage.”

He’s toured several full-length solo shows that cohere around specific themes. Are these written in the same way?

“As for my themed shows, they tend to come about in one of two ways. Either I pick a theme and write to it, or the theme tends to grow organically out of whatever type of material I happen to be doing at the time.”

One of the most distinctive and popular features of Yianni’s comedy is his range of characterisations. Yianni has a diverse and colourful repertoire of characters and voices which he draws upon.

These sometimes occur in separate sketches, but moments of character-comedy are also present in his stand-up routines: “I weave it in. People have always seemed to like it when I put on voices so I try topepper my act with little characters here and there. It adds colour and keeps the audience guessing.”

This won’t be Yianni’s first visit to Malta, as he had a four-day holiday last year.

He comments: “I’m looking forward to getting back to Gozo, the place that sounds like a James Bond super-villain!”

Yianni will be performing at the Eden Comedy Club on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are available from www.edencinemas.com.mt/Event/1530/.