Of All People doesn’t shy away from personal trauma, such as your relationship with your mother and suicidal ideation. Yet there’s never a time watching you that we feel uncomfortable or that you need rescuing. How did you strike that balance? It was really important for me that the show is anchored in the present, although it covers stuff from the past; so people know I’m safe in the present without me sugarcoating how bad things have been in the past. I feel like I have a duty of care for audiences because it’s not fun to sit and worry about a performer. Sometimes it can be beautifully done if it’s theatrical, but the main thing with this show is that I really worked on finding the right amount of tension and release for the audience. And I think you can only get that if you’re covering stuff that you have recovered from. So yes, it was definitely intentional to make sure everyone was quite comfortable, but at points you could be uncomfortable and then I bring you back to comfort and safety. 

You’re a native French speaker, and speak Algerian as well as English. Given how important the structure and rhythm of a sentence is in comedy, what’s it like to write and perform with three different languages in your head? I don’t perform in French as much as I’d like to, but it’s something I want to do in the future, so I’m giving myself space to get good at it because rhythm is very important for me. I almost think of it like music; every section has a rhythm and I want to get that satisfying rhythm just right. I do feel people react differently if it’s out by just a millisecond, or a change in tone or the voice going up or down in a different way. If you see me try a joke for the first time, and then it’s part of a show, I will have worked out the rhythm to get the biggest release. Sometimes I’ll go into the sing-song way that the English speak, which has a wave to it, whereas French tends to be quite monotone. And I think that being able to use both makes for an interesting delivery. But when I speak French, it’s very straight to the point. 

You’ve lived in the UK since 2014. Which is the most dominant language for you now? I always write in English because it’s the main thing in my brain now. But the bilingual brain has different memories attached to different words. So if I’m writing a bit and it feels too clinical, and that there’s not enough of me in it, I’ll try and think of it in French instead and see what comes out. So there are a lot of steps to writing for me. 

One of the many funny elements in Of All People is the way you calculate how much each joke is worth. It’s delivered in a light way, but doesn’t it also make an important point about how much a performer puts into a show versus how much they’re paid? That’s something I really care about because there’s a lot of honesty in this show and a lot of rawness. And it was quite by accident that I realised each joke is worth 16p based on the ticket price, which made me laugh a lot. You spend about a year writing a show, and I think tickets are already too expensive for people; when you compare it to the amount of work, I think it’s just a bad deal for both the comedian and the audience member. But by talking at the start of a show about the cost of the ticket, and the fact that it’s a contract between the audience and me, it allows me to say ‘remember, this is theatre.’ The kind of raw honesty I give you is something I’ve measured; it’s still a performance and I owe you something, so here’s the show.

You write for TV and radio as well as your own stand-up. How different is it for you to craft words that will come out of somebody else’s mouth? It’s so fun to write for someone else as it allows you to play around with topics you wouldn’t normally cover. I’ve been writing for other people for as long as I’ve been doing stand-up, and at first I struggled to find my authentic voice. I would just think that’s a good joke, it’s not really my voice but I’m going to write it and say it anyway. And one of the things I’ve done for Of All People is try and write for myself, to really find my voice and work on the authenticity. 

Celya AB: Of All People tours until Sunday 9 March.