GEORDIE comic Rahul Kohli will perform two shows in quick succession at York's Great Yorkshire Fringe on Wednesday, as indeed he will at next month's Edinburgh Fringe.

His 5.30pm performance of Newcastle Brown Tales Part II in The Turn Pot tent will be followed after barely half an hour's break by All My Heroes Are Dead, In Jail Or Touched Up Your Gran at 7pm.

Both last an hour, both carry an advisory age of 15 plus, but their comedic style and content will be contrasting, the first lighter than the second, albeit both are not averse to sailing close to the wind.

Let's take Newcastle Brown Tales Part II first. "Last year, it was stories about being nearly killed by a fire-breathing dragon and accidentally joining a Romani gypsy drug smuggling ring. This year it's a brand new hour of true stories including Spekky Rizwan Goes To Jail, how I communicated with the dead and how I unwittingly befriended a convicted paedophile," says the BBC Big Asian Comedy Night star.

"They're all fresh stories. Part I was largely about when I was younger; Part II is about becoming adult and starting to think 'how dumb we were to do those things in the first place'.

"There'll be five or so minutes from last year to explain the premise and then 50 minutes of new material. It's made me reflect on those teenage stories and reflect on them in an adult way, looking at them endearingly at first, but now thinking 'what a stupid idiot'. I feel like I'm turning into my mother, thinking 'oh, she was right'!"

As with Newcastle Brown Tales Part II, Kohli's second hour-long show, All My Heroes Are Dead, In Jail Or Touched Up Your Gran, is "up and running and still needing a little more work" in the lead-up to the Edinburgh Fringe run from August 3 to 26.

As the title would suggest, Kohli will be "walking the tightrope seeking to maintain balance" in a show with a contentious title. "I'll be analysing the fact that we've got to the point where, whether as a collective species or individuals, we know most our of ancestors will have done some pretty sh***y things."

York Press:

"There's no one person who's 100 per cent good or 100 per cent bad," says Rahul Kohli

His show publicity puts it this way: "Rahul Kohli grew up with many heroes. He now realises all of them are or, if not, will be exposed as homophobes, sex pests, Nazis and perhaps even homunculi secretly harvesting human lives in an attempt to attain a Philosopher's Stone. As a result, he now has no heroes and treats everyone as potential Nazi-paedophiles."

Alarm bells ringing? "I'm seriously worried my show [poster] might get taken down because the title is too provocative but hopefully they'll see there's more to it than a title," says Rahul.

Crucially the show asks: was everyone that ever lived truly horrid or are society's standards changing at an exponential rate that humanity is just not ready for yet?

"It's either going to go spectacularly wrong or I'll be the saviour of humanity, though there's no way I can be the saviour of seven billion people...." he says, contemplating the task in hand amid rising extremism on the political right and left.

"What troubles me now is that no-one sits down and listens to each other; on social media we see opinions before see human beings. "

Comedians are in a powerful position to mull over serious issues through the prism of humour, as well as just telling gags. The first Kohli show will be more straightforward entertainment, more traditional stand-up; the second will be more radical, more discursive, provocative, taking the audience on a journey that requires more contemplation.

"There's no one person who's 100 per cent good or 100 per cent bad; it's all yin and yang," he concludes.

For Rahul Kohli tickets, go to greatyorkshirefringe.com, call in at Bob the box office bus in Parliament Street or phone 01904 500600.