This Is My Dad: In Conversation with Jody Kamali

Jody Kamali's latest Edinburgh Fringe show is inspired by an extraordinary real-life discovery: after his father's death, he learned that the man he thought he knew had spent years secretly helping fellow Middle Eastern refugees escape conflict. We sat down with Kamali to discuss turning that remarkable story into a comedy, playing both himself and his father on stage, and making peace with the questions that remain.

You discovered after your father's death that he had quietly helped fellow Middle Eastern refugees flee war-torn countries for decades, telling nobody – how did it feel to uncover that, and did it fundamentally change not just how you saw him but how you saw your whole shared history?

I still find it difficult to process because he was such a complicated, unpredictable man. He neglected his own well-being and never seemed interested in the daily responsibilities of life. What has been incredibly moving is hearing from the people he helped. To hear someone say, "I owe everything to your dad," or to see them break down when they found out he'd died, has been truly touching. It revealed another side of him that I never knew existed. It hasn't made him any less complex; it has just made him even harder to define.

You play both yourself and your father in the show – what was the process of finding him physically and vocally, and does stepping into his body teach you things about him that thinking or writing about him doesn't?

I've always had a knack for imitating him; his mannerisms, posture and voice. My mum used to say she couldn't tell the difference if I rang pretending to be my dad. My director describes it as "freaky" when I suddenly become him. Just before the first preview, I caught my reflection in a window. I was dressed as him, complete with the moustache, and it stopped me in my tracks. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I had a lump in my throat. For a split second, it felt as though he was looking back at me. I come alive when I am in costume. You can never have that feeling sitting at a desk writing text.

This is your sixteenth Edinburgh Fringe show, which is a remarkable number – how is making this one different from the fifteen that came before, and does the personal weight of the material change your relationship to the process of turning a life into a show?

I don’t usually write personal shows, but when my dad died, I realised there was a show in my experience of discovering who he was. I have 40 years of material, and it’s not just an ordinary life story; it’s 40 years of a truly bizarre, captivating, and mysterious man who also happens to be my father. This show doesn’t need punching up with gags; the humour is already there. His life as it was is pure gold, and my director, Oliver Senton, and I have been careful to respect that. It’s about staying true to the story and avoiding exaggeration just for cheap laughs.

The show began as a search for answers but became something bigger – at what point did you realise you were no longer just investigating your father but were actually making something about the limits of how well we can ever know another person?

What changed during the making of this show was accepting that I wasn't going to get all the answers. At first, I was desperate for answers. I wanted to understand him, to solve him. I eventually realised that wasn't possible and, strangely, I've become more comfortable with that. But there are still moments when I wish I had the answers and can't quite let him go. Are we all who we say we are? Perhaps not. But it's probably best not to dwell on it too much, or you'll end up creating an Edinburgh Fringe show.

Comedy is doing a lot of heavy lifting here alongside grief and unanswered questions – where do you find the line between a laugh that releases something true and one that lets the audience, or you, off the hook too easily?

Comedy is what I do, so I was never going to stop being funny just because the subject matter is serious. But I was conscious that I couldn't joke my way past the emotional moments. If a scene needed to breathe, we let it breathe.

The laughs are there because my dad's life choices and behaviour were genuinely funny, not because I'm trying to distract people from the grief. The more serious moments aren't peppered with jokes; they're left unfiltered. I think that makes the funny moments even funnier because there's a real sense of release.

It's always fascinating to watch an audience be caught off guard by a serious moment in what's billed as a comedy. Those moments give the show its depth and, I hope, reveal more of who my dad really was. Then, when the laughs come again, they somehow feel bigger because the audience has been on the journey with him.

You describe your father as frustrating, confusing and extraordinary all at once – now that the show exists and you've performed it, do you feel you've reached an understanding of him, or has the process of examining him so closely made him in some ways more mysterious?

Creating this show has definitely given me a better sense of who he was, but I can't shake the feeling that there are still more bizarre discoveries out there waiting to come to light. That's what fascinates me.

Maybe there'll be a sequel in a couple of years.

After the show, people often come up to me with questions about him, and I usually just shrug my shoulders and say, "Your guess is as good as mine."

Will I ever move on? I honestly don't know. At some point, I probably have to, for my own peace of mind. But then again, if another box of my dad's paperwork turns up, who knows?!

Jody Kamali: This is my Dad is at Assembly George Square, The Crate, 5 – 30 Aug (not 17 & 25), 14.40 Ticket information here:Jody Kamali: This is My Dad | Edinburgh Festival Fringe