Hans Teeuwen: Dutch Courage

“Think of the children!” cries an angry parent. “Get out of my country!” shouts another. Inside the comedy tent of the 2008 Latitude Festival things don’t look good for Dutch comedian Hans Teeuwen. “And you lift the skirt like this,” Teeuwen explains in a comically thick Dutch accent, miming the beauty of the female form to a group of imaginary Martians. “And then you see these buttocks, such beautiful buttocks, and you touch them, why not?”

It’s too late. Teeuwen’s surreal and knowingly inappropriate sexual skit has been misunderstood as misogynistic and a mob chant of “fuck off” forces him off stage.

It’s not the first time Teeuwen has felt the wrath of comedy audiences. Since starting to perform in the UK in 2007, Teeuwen’s provocative and absurd style has left many British punters confused, upset and angry. Gigs in Glasgow, Bath and Kilkenny have all had audience members walk out, with some even demanding their money back. Yet two trips to the Edinburgh Fringe have seen Teeuwen hailed as a comedy genius, with a blizzard of five-star reviews and a devoted cult following.

Certainly on stage Teeuwen is something of a phenomenon. Bulldozing through his set with breathtaking intensity, he delights in disorientating his audiences, peppering them with bizarre stories and leaving many in a state of punch-drunk amusement, where they don’t know how or why they’re laughing.

I arrange to meet Teeuwen in the chic ‘Zuid’ district of Amsterdam, where he lives with his photographer girlfriend. “This is where the filthy rich live,” he says, pointing to a cluster of outrageous canal-side mansions. “Ever since I was a boy, I said, ‘Hansey, one day you will live in one of those’”. He grins impishly at me and the glint in his eye is hard to decipher.

Cryptic jokes aside, the fact is nowadays Teeuwen could afford any mansion he likes. In a career spanning nearly 15 years, he has risen to become Holland’s most famous comedian and an ever-present public figure – both on the live circuit and in a clutch of popular TV programmes and films. He even briefly moonlighted as a lounge singer, performing Sinatra covers to presumably bemused comedy fans.

As we walk towards a local bar, Teeuwen shows me the legendary comedy club, Toomlers, where he first made his name. Now 42, Teeuwen was a relative latecomer to comedy, only beginning in his mid 20s. He admits before stand-up there wasn’t much direction in his life. “For many years I just hung out with this group of junkies in my hometown near Eindhoven.”

However, after a stint at drama school (“I realised I was funnier than everyone else”), Teeuwen joined the collective ComedyTrain. It was here that he began to develop his characteristic cabaret style - inspired by the Dutch tradition of ‘Caberetier’ – of constantly and manically switching from comic character to song to story. “At the time Caberetier was quite tired,” he says. “I wanted to do something new, where there was no narrative, where I just moved from one thing to the other with no explanation.”

In person, Teeuwen is actually remarkably calm compared to his frenzied on-stage persona. However, he is unable to prevent streaks of mischief from leaping out during our interview. Tonight he appropriates the plastic stirrer from his Earl Grey as his weapon of choice, brandishing it at me during moments of intellectual excitement, catapulting pieces of paper from it onto other unassuming guests and gnawing at it until it finally falls apart in his mouth.

The Dutchman becomes particularly animated when we start talking about his new Edinburgh show, which has just previewed the night before in Toomlers. “It was so fucking nerve-wracking,” he exclaims. “But actually it went really well. What I like is that most of the material is completely new. Some bits are just complete nonsense, some bits flirt with politics, and of course there’s lots of sex,” he chuckles to himself. “Oh and there’s new songs, two brand new songs, and a speech…inspired by Obama.”

No doubt for those that haven’t already seen Teeuwen the new show will be, at the very least, a unique experience. Teeuwen admits some will be puzzled, others “probably quite upset”. But the one thing you can guarantee is that there won’t be any political lecturing. “I don’t want to give people a message,” he says. “That’s boring and unintelligent. Absurdism is far more provocative than any social comment. It’s better to throw something into people’s faces and say ‘Okay, now what do you think?’”

The absence of polemic in Teeuwen’s comedy is particularly striking considering his profile in Dutch politics since the murder of his close friend, film director Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh was first shot and then had his throat slit by a Muslim fundamentalist in 2004, after making the film Submission, which challenged the treatment of women in Islam.

The murder put the limelight on Teeuwen, as well as other prominent campaigners for free speech - or “big mouths” as Teeuwen likes to put it. However, soon after the murder Teeuwen announced he would never perform comedy in the Netherlands again. Inevitably, the press were quick to label this an act of protest or even fear, but Teeuwen is keen to set the record straight.

“Theo’s murder wasn’t the reason I stopped performing. My life as a stand-up was becoming repetitive and I wanted a new challenge. So I started performing in English.”

But surely van Gogh’s death had some bearing on his decision? “Okay, if I had done a new show it would have been difficult because my approach with controversial subjects has always been to go straight in, bamm! and then it becomes absurd and funny. But I mean Theo’s strategy was constantly seeking the confrontation. Come here, debate, debate. I’m not sure I would have had the courage to do that after what happened.”

Despite what he says, in reality Teeuwen has refused to shy away from the issue of free speech – a stance that was clear during a TV interview with three Muslim women in 2007, where his fluent defence of freedom of expression was voted ‘Dutch TV Moment of the Year’.

Considering the success he has had in Holland (a handful of fans come to greet Teeuwen during our interview alone), is he upset about the reaction he has received at British gigs like Latitude?

“Yeah, I was a little upset. There was this angry mob and they were really enjoying butchering me,” he laughs. “But I kept Andy Kaufman in mind. I’m so grateful to him. I just kept interpreting their boos as cheers and kept bowing to them. But there was something interesting about the viciousness of the crowd. I thought, ‘This is why they burned so many witches!’”

Teeuwen has two theories for why people sometimes react badly to his provocative approach to stand-up. “Firstly I think some people just won’t let you go too far with certain subjects. It’s like they have a boundary and they guard it religiously. You can relativise anything but not that.

“But the interesting thing is that after I’ve done a show a few times it has a kind of rhythm which makes it easier to digest. It becomes fluent and somehow less raw,” he looks upward and searches for an analogy. “It’s like Hitler,” he says finally, clearly delighted with his choice. “He said nothing. His speeches were about absolutely nothing, but they had this rhythm.” He starts tapping away with his stirrer again. “It’s more entertaining because of the musicality; it makes the substance more ironic.”

But it is not just the substance of Teeuwen’s comedy that divides his audiences. Many also find his absurdist approach inane and pointless. “Mainly I think people get most upset when they don’t get certain humour but they see others around them that do. Then they’re forced to doubt their own sense of humour and they’d rather see me dead than do that.”

I put it to Teeuwen that another reason may be that some audiences have simply never been introduced to ‘high’ artistic traditions like Surrealism or Absurdism. He ponders this for a while and finally nods his head graciously. “I suppose if you don’t have that sensibility, and you haven’t been brought up with it, yes.”

This sums up Teeuwen. Thoughtful and analytical about his and others’ comedy (“I just love that guy, Alan Partridge”), he strikes me as a comedian who truly sees himself as an artist.

Indeed talking to Teeuwen, as opposed to the sometimes bewildering experience of watching him, it is also abundantly clear that he genuinely cares about the impact of his comedy. Contrary to what he might tell you, he is not just some aloof egomaniac who attributes the ignominy of experiences like Latitude to the ignorance of the audience.

“When people come for the first time, I really have to conquer them. And sometimes I need to change the order of the show to help the audience slide into my way of thinking, to draw them into my sense of humour. It’s exhausting, but if it works and by the end people are laughing at things they wouldn’t normally find funny, that’s pretty cool.”