Comedian Ari Eldjárn has been popular in Iceland for years but recently, he started taking his stand-up international, playing the Edinburgh Fringe festival last year before taking his show, Pardon My Icelandic, to London and later this year, all the way to Australia.
According to Ari, he has no trouble translating his humour. “The same jokes work wherever you go. In my standup, I make fun of what Icelanders think of the Danish people, which is by no means common knowledge in the UK. I pepper my standup with short additions, little subtitles, just enough to give people the context of the joke. That‘s how I translate my humour between countries. You get an entirely different show but the jokes still work.“
So what can people expect from an Ari Eldjárn comedy show? According to Ari; “Bright, happy, energetic, fast-paced comedy.“ One thing you can‘t expect is vulgarity. “One of the reviews after my stint at the Edinburgh Fringe festival went something like: ‘Apart from the occasional swear word, this is possibly the cleanest show at the entire festival.’ He was poking fun at the fact that I‘m a clean comedian. I take it as a compliment since it‘s not really a choice, I‘ve just never been any good at being vulgar. Some people do it really well and I can laugh my head off at a good dirty joke. But I‘m just not good at it myself. There‘s an art to it.“
If you want to know more about Ari and his comedy, read the full interview .
