We sat down for an exclusive interview with Kuan-Wen before his show at Andrews Are the Worst at Edinburgh Fringe. Kuan-wen serves up heartbreak, dating drama, and rom-com delusion in a gloriously chaotic hour about love gone wrong – and why it’s always an Andrew.
Kuan-wen, this new show sounds like a wild ride – can you tell us about the inspiration for the show… and was everyone really called Andrew?
It was a wild ride! Or two wild rides to be more specific. I am digging into the slightly distant past – when Rhianna still bothered to release albums – to talk about the two relationships that consumed almost two years of my life combined. By that I mean going through the message history, whatsapp chat record and grindr chats and asking myself why I was such an idiot. I don’t even know if these were relationships or situationships or whatever the mess they were. Both were bad. REALLY BAD. They dragged on and on and on – it was like the tail end of the endless Tory government from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak … pretty much everyone wanted it to end but somehow it just kept going.
I did my debut show in 2023 and did not plan for an immediate follow up show either last year or this year. It felt to me the comedy industry and landscape was changing drastically and more effort should be diverted to social media. It was not until five minutes after this year’s New Year firework, I received a text from one of my exes (one of the “Andrews”) in which he tried to show he still thought about me and cared about me. All I could think was a massive “FXXX OFF”. This ignited my anger so I finally got the drive I needed to write a new show.
This is someone I made clear I no longer wanted to be in contact with. Yet after I blocked his number, ignored his text, he’d simply move on to my facebook account, instagram account or use a new number to get in touch. He’s like Peter Mandelson that just never goes away. This ex does that twice a year, scheduled like an out-of-office assistant. Everytime I think he’s out of my life and I can be left at peace, I receive just another text. That’s why I thought of doing a show called “Andrews Are The Worst”. Hopefully he’ll finally get the message next time he googles me.
To the second question – yes, the two exes are both called Andrew. Both share the same initial actually. It’s “AB”. I mention their full names in the show, telling the audience I am not afraid of any GDPR concerns since both have very common surnames. If you search either of their names on Linkedin for example, a whole list of average white males appear.
I did not make up their name to just jump on the bandwagon of Andrew-bashing. Rather, after the disastrous Prince Andrew interview with Emily Maitlis was aired, coupled with endless bad press about Andrew Tate, I jokingly told other comedian friends before that I had two horrible exes who were also called Andrews so maybe I should write a show called “Andrews Are The Worst.” That’s when I noticed the British really respond to a silly name. So the show title has been in my pockets for years as a throwaway comment, but the text after the New Year Firework really kicked me into writing the show.
You explore themes that can be quite complex – from power dynamics in relationships to questions of race and queerness. What has it meant to you to bring those topics to the stage?
This is an interesting question. My approach to putting a comedy show together has somewhat changed. I had a theme in my previous show. I wanted to introduce my home country Taiwan to a wider audience, so I weaved the history of the island and current events into the show, dotting it with personal stories as they fit so it was more theme-focused.
This time, I just want to rant. But not to rant like an opinionated right-wing podcaster; more like venting my anger towards my terrible exes, except it would be third parties who will be listening. I didn’t have a conclusion or an argument to make after sharing the stories. (Or maybe I do? That is, if you are dating someone called Andrew, RUN!)
The show is akin to the solidarity shown amongst girls in the bathroom of a bar or a restaurant. Picture one poor girl sobbing in front of a mirror because she is fully aware that her boyfriend is a d**chebag, that he treats her appallingly, but it’s tricky to face the truth and leave him. In fact, when I did a preview at this year’s Glasgow International Comedy Festival, a girl gasped in the middle and shouted out “Oh my god, I totally understand you!” I want to revisit these with the clarity I have now, because it is funny to me in 2025 but painful for me back then.
So it started as a universal experience which I think most people can relate to. But as I started to go into the details, it struck me that some facts, plot twists and thus jokes were specific to my race and the racial background of the two Andrews, our power dynamics and the fact that we are all gay men, assuming these two haven’t changed. By that, I mean I did not set out to date two caucasian males as a field research to write a show on the racial dynamics of queer dating. I was (and still am) a queer boy looking for love interests and happened to stumble upon two caucasian males, who both denied being big rice queens but who both had dated a string of East Asian boys prior to me.
I joke about what happened to me, so that I feel comfortable any derivative thoughts or comments I have are worth listening to. I hope I manage to convey a universal experience to as many as possible, but for anyone with a particular interest in any of these topics, they can also find my original take.
You may also say the topics of power dynamics, racial differences and queerness were incidental when I started telling the story of my horrible exes, but as the story is specifically my story, the deeper the story is told, these become ever more integral to the jokes.
You’ve spoken before about wanting to be seen not just as a comic with an accent or an identity, but as a full storyteller. How do you feel the UK comedy scene is shifting in that regard?
I don’t recall my exact wording but this is such a tricky point to have a clear position on. There are so many dilemmas and paradoxes. As an example, in an ideal world, I don’t want the audience to always box me in, as in them reacting “I don’t want to hear you talking about this … why aren’t you addressing your accent/why don’t you talk about that instead?”
At the same time, I use my queerness and foreignness as highlights for show blurbs and self promotion. I sometimes wonder if it is wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
If we talk about the wider comedy scene, no one likes their opportunities being denied or reduced because of their identities. But the same identity sometimes helps secure opportunities when the promoters or the wider industry seek to promote diversity.
I can’t say for the UK comedy scene as a whole, as I have been reducing my frequency of gigging outside London due to rising transport costs. But as far as the comedy scene in London is concerned, queer representation is getting more diverse and there are now more venues dedicated to queer comedy. Some will have dedicated queer shows. In regular shows, there can be more than one queer act on the line up. These are all positive changes. I wrote a piece about this that was published in May.
As for embracing foreign acts and internationalism, there are more nights in London for immigrant comedians and more performers from non-UK backgrounds for sure. But this may have to do with the simple laws of supply and demand – there are enough residents in London who were not born in the UK and who would happily go for more internationally focused shows in grassroot comedy.
I do feel bad for saying this, but I feel a significant amount of gatekeepers or those wielding enough power in the comedy scene still have a rather closed outlook. Call it the little Englander mentality or provincialism – this current seems to be getting stronger since the Brexit vote. Perhaps, this reflects how the UK is unsure about how to look at itself in the modern era. The fact is stand up comedy is absolutely booming around the world. Global comedy stars do not just do comedy shows in the UK when they come to Europe, they also do shows in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Zurich, Stockholm. The growing market and perhaps the biggest market for stand up comedy in English are people who speak English as a second language. Stand up is also booming in all different languages. There are comedians doing amazing work touring continental Europe, but these rarely get registered by the UK comedy industry.
You’re returning to the Fringe this year – what does performing in Edinburgh mean to you, especially with a show as personal as this one?
I am both excited and anxious about doing a new show at the Fringe. Creative considerations aside, it’s a big financial decision. I had pretty good ticket sales for my 2023 show, but with all the fees added up, it was still a heft loss in financial terms. More than one comic has told me it makes more sense to invest the money you could burn at Edinburgh Fringe in social media advertising or hiring professionals to manage your socials.
As a trained accountant, I can see the logic behind such an argument. But I also feel some advantages you get from participating are harder to quantify. I love the international aspect of the Fringe audience and the possibility of doing more than twenty shows day after day.
I hosted a two-week compilation show “Comedy with an Accent” at the Fringe last year. Some people who came to it asked when I will bring my next solo show, as they had come to my 2023 show. I think knowing there are people who look forward to your next show is the biggest driver for any performer.
Eventually I made a compromise by signing up but cutting down on costs. I am therefore performing in a yurt this time and manage everything myself without a production company. But the new venue operates a Pay What You Can model with different ticket prices for the punters to choose. I think this is a much better approach in today’s economy.
On the last note, I typically make jokes about what happens to me, so by definition, most of my comedy shows would be personal. I hope people who come to my show don’t see the word “personal” and think there’s almost a theatrical monologue on exposing my vulnerability. I make fun of the horrible exes, but I am also the butt of the joke – from having unrealistic expectations to being the psycho partner to lying to myself. I want my show to be silly and packed with jokes. The world is horrible as it is so I hope my silly little comedy show can offer an hour of respite and escapism. I hope anyone who watches the show will want to see me telling more jokes in the future.
What do you hope audiences connect with most in this show?
I hope they find the show funny as I do! That for an hour, they had a good time and really laughed. And for those who have similar experiences, they also find it therapeutic.
Most people would get what having terrible exes is like. For those who claim that they don’t, they are probably the horrible exes themselves (or at least they are the horrible current partners to someone else).
Being able to mock your ex and laughing at your former self that was trapped in a toxic relationship takes away the power from the manipulators. I think. One has to be honest with themself first to start recognising their own pattern for falling for the wrong guys. Then you recognise how funny you are.
Lastly, when they next meet a guy called Andrew … exercise a bit of caution s’il vous plaît.. Maybe do some thorough background check as a minimum. And please do not give your children that god-for-saken horrible name.