Coming to Perth Fringe World and Adelaide Fringe in February, Joshy in Paris unleashes a vision of the city not as romance and croissants, but as a gritty, piss-ridden playground where a gay Aussie from Penrith battles heartbreak, language fails, and wild dreams of comedy stardom. One chaotic, campy escapade at a time.
In our interview, Joshua Hauville reveals how his high-energy solo show blending stand-up, burlesque, clowning, and dance transforms Emily in Paris but broke and gay mayhem into a glitzier, grungier, gayer thrill that’s conquered Melbourne, Europe, and Sydney. From botched French causing bourgeois meltdowns to gritty tales of artistic hustle amid pastries and heartbreak, Joshua bares the slap-and-kiss absurdity and infectious energy behind his Parisian adventures. Read our interview below.
Bonjour Joshua, you’re bringing your show Joshy in Paris to Perth Fringe World and Adelaide Fringe over the next few months. Can you tell us about the show?
The show blends stand up, physical comedy and clowny silliness to share an exaggerated retelling of my experience as a gay lil Aussie from Penrith trying to make it as an actor + comedian while braving life in Paris. Think Emily in Paris but broke and gay.
What made you decide to write the show?
I had been full time pursuing stand up, alt comedy, small theatre and acting training in the underground theatres of Paris for a bit over a year and decided to put all my material accumulated over this period into a cohesive one-man comedy show for Melbourne Comedy Festival 2025.
It’s in the comedy cabaret category of both programs. What makes it more comedy than cabaret? Where does the balance lie for you?
My stand up style is energetic storytelling with punchlines. The solo show gave me the chance to build on top of existing stand up bits with dance numbers, theatrical re-enactments, video elements and a fun audience participation game. The material was already finessed as stand up routines, cabaret numbers and alt comedy performances that I workshopped in the comedy clubs of Europe. However, the show follows a storyline from start to finish in the style of a very camp, high energy theatre show.
The show blurb says that the show “shares the tale of life lived as a gay Australian trying to make it as a creative superstar in the piss-ridden streets of Paris”. That automatically sets a less than idyllic tone for the usually romanticised Paris. What do you like the most and the least about Paris?
What I love about Paris is its grit just as much as the historical architecture and café culture. There is a strange romantic image of Paris that is often told through the eyes of a whimsical city of romance, culture and beauty. Those elements exist, but it’s not the Paris I know.
The first time I ever visited Europe was when I was 21 when I did an exchange program at a university in Paris for the year of 2018. I then returned to Paris at the beginning of 2024 to live there again for another year and a half with a working holiday visa. I experienced Paris first as a student, battling the language, the culture, and the men while studying law and working in restaurants to support myself. I then experienced Paris as a struggling artist, scrapping in various odd jobs and cycling/metroing/running around the city to various comedy, acting and clowny gigs in the pursuit of a dream that seemed ludicrous to many.
Both of my periods living in Paris I experienced deep transformation and confronted a lot of parts of myself that felt icky or fearful of self expression. Paris has a funny way of kissing you one day and bitch slapping you the next and there’s something poetic about that.
In my lowest of lows, I would think to myself, at least I’m heartbroken in Paris. What better place to brood, stroll through a cemetery on a grey day and huff a ciggie on a terrace. And then eat a 1 euro pastry that feels like an orgasm in my mouth and forget it ever happened.
Your show is described as “glitzier, grungier and gayer” for the 2026 tour. What did the Melbourne 2025 debut teach you that made you want to dial up the grunge for Perth and Adelaide?
Melbourne was my first run of a solo show and certain elements of the show were being tweaked every night. I since performed the show 4 times in Paris over July-August, once in London in September and once in Sydney in November. Each time the show got bolder, the audio-visual elements got more extensive and my ease with the material grew.
Even just travelling to perform in Melbourne, Sydney, New York, London, Paris and Amsterdam across 2025 as a comedian, actor and ridiculous character clown allowed me to continue to open doors within myself and become more willing to get gritty and grungy on stage.
What was your most “lost in translation” moment that felt straight out of a burlesque nightmare?
I have two lost in translation moments that come to mind One in Spanish when I was travelling there and I asked a teenager working at McDonalds for a hand job instead of a straw (saying paja instead of pajita). Not the best experience.
The other, in French, happened when I was a student in 2018. I was working at a restaurant 4-5 times a week and one night I was hosting at the door seating people. We didn’t accept bookings and the restaurant would be busy with a line out the door every night. A pushy, upper-middle class bourgeois French woman lead the charge of a group of four and was insistent on getting a table quicker than others, obviously not used to waiting. I told her, we could offer her a bottle of wine while she waits for her table that they could drink outside. She became ecstatic.
The night continued and although she was a bit snarky, she was fine, just a typical archetype of a bourgeois Parisian woman. Then I gave them the bill and she was livid. She said “why is the wine on the list, you said it was offered?”. In the heat of the moment I had forgotten in French that the verb offrir, to offer, means to gift someone something for free. Instead of saying “shout someone a drink”, you offer them one. I turned up my Australian accent, went bright red and said I didn’t understand my French isn’t very good. Her friends scolded her and she left me alone. But it was a panic for my younger, less confident self.
Your show is a “delicious blend” of stand-up, dance, theatre, and burlesque. What does each of these artforms let you express about your Parisian experience that the others can’t?
I am an energetic and quick moving man. I personally could never do an hour performance of just stand up or theatre. It bores me to bits. So honestly, it’s a very natural performance style for me. Variety is the spice of my life and I think the blend of the elements keeps me and the audience engaged.
Also, the sound cues, video elements, lighting design and physical comedy of dance, theatre and burlesque allows an audience to feel a little more what this experience of Paris life was like, instead of explaining to them through just simple punchlines.
You’ve spent the last two years living in Paris. What have you been doing there?
I was doing a bit of everything. I studied a Double Bachelor of Film Production and Laws at uni, one of those years doing exchange in Paris. I always wanted to make films and perform but felt super inhibited after growing up in an environment that I felt scared to express myself.
Since travelling the globe, living abroad and doing deep self work, I really unlocked all these parts of myself which culminated in me finally getting the courage to quit corporate jobs (previously a lawyer, salesman and marketing bot) and pursue my creative path fulltime in late 2023.
Six months after this decision I moved to Paris to follow a call from within that didn’t really make logical sense but was screaming at me from inside. While there I worked in production on film sets, hosted cabarets, comedy nights and theatre shows, worked in restaurants, taught English, freelanced, ate a diet of oats, cheap bread, and a passion for creative expression, made a couple of short films and advanced on the writing of a TV series loosely based on the premise of my solo show.
There is a long tradition of “Clown” in France (Gaulier, Lecoq). Did you dive into that formal training while over there, or is your “clowny burlesque” more of a self-taught response to the absurdity of Parisian life?
I didn’t formally train at one of the schools. But whilst performing and living in Paris I met many people passing through doing the clown schools and even went to some clown workshops run by some of the former students.
My clowny burlesque style kind of came more naturally both as a response to the absurdity of life in general. I’ve always been a bit of a freak and once I started incorporating that into my comedy something really came alive inside of me and my performances.
I have always seen life as quite absurd and since a toddler have been the person that questions why we do anything in life. I think living overseas emphasises this more because you become aware that your traditions, your expected ways of being and what you consider ‘normal’ are not objective truths, but just something you have been conditioned to accept as the norm.
Even in learning a new language you unlock new ways of being and see society through the lens of an observer instead of a participant. The Parisian culture traditions really take this to another level and is perhaps why international clowns and artists have long travelled there to feel inspired and transformed creatively.
Performing comedy in a second language culture can be brutal. Has living in France changed the rhythm or “zestiness” of your stand-up style?
It was a really good exercise living there because when performing in English to a group of internationals of whom most had English as their second-language, I had to learn to adapt my comedy to be understandable to a broader audience. Especially as an Australian when our accent, slang and cultural references never make it outside of Australia.
Some nights the crowd just really didn’t understand half of what the comedians were saying, which helps build resilience because you can’t rely on audience laughter or energy to gauge how you are performing, you just have to give your all as if it’s the best thing they’ve ever heard and you’re killing it.
Also, I have performed in both Spanish and French. Not near as much as I have in English but I have done it a few times and that in itself unlocks a whole new door of confidence within to say it doesn’t fucking matter, if you sound stupid or mess up a word or your accent is too strong, you won’t die.
All that said, it is now extremely refreshing to be performing to Australian audiences that I can freely babble to. And the Aussie tour version of Joshy in Paris has been Australian-ified to give more Aussie moments that only people who have lived here can appreciate.
If Paris were a person you were dating, what kind of relationship would you say you two are in right now: passionate affair, toxic situationship, or co-dependent mess?
In July-August last year I had returned there thinking I was going to lock in a longer term visa and stay there as my base for the near future. Paris and the powers that be had other plans for me and I was unceremoniously lynched, stripped bare and booted out after all my attempts to hustle and make it work crumbled before my eyes. It was a blessing because I feel I let go of an old version of myself in the process and I know it ain’t the last Paris and I have seen of each other.
So right now I’d say we are separated and working towards sharing custody of our baby (Joshy in Paris and the TV Series I have been developing associated therewith) until the point when we have both developed more independence in our own lives and can finally live together again in a healthier dynamic with more money and less stress.
You debuted the show at MICF 2025 and have toured it around Europe. How have audiences reacted so far? Have you performed it in France? What was the French impression of it?
The French eat this show up like a freshly baked croissant au beurre. I feel I have earned their respect because I put in the hard yards of learning the French language, adapting to French culture and appreciating it for what it is. My show pokes fun at both French and Australian culture but it’s all in camp, silly fun.
Audiences have been enjoying it. I always make sure to tweak it a little depending on the country: the European version had more references to specific Parisian life that you understand from having spent more time there. The Brits as well LOVE taking the piss out of the French, and themselves so they’re always a fun audience to play to.
My experience performing all around the world and backpacking throughout my twenties has given me a knack for finding humour with any audience and it’s like a fun game to see how you can slightly tweak delivery or punchlines to appeal to new audiences.
How do you find French audiences respond to your brand of queer humour compared to Australians—are they laughing at the same jokes, or entirely different ones?
The one difference I have noted is the French comfortability with deeper moments. I have some deeper segments in my show that are more raw in comparison to the main camp silly vibe of my stage persona. It lands well across the board, but the French are far more interested in just listening to a dramatic or sad moment, whereas Australians tend to want things to be more light-hearted, happy and silly.
It’s nice to have this balance. I myself had to confront this trait from my time living in Paris where I would try to turn anything into a joke and avoid the more serious topics of life. So I appreciate the honesty and directness that France and French comedy has brought me.
In terms of queerness, my show is queer but it’s mostly in a downright silly and camp way. It’s like Mr Bean Queer and not RuPaul. I am more disarming in my self expression than in-your-face which I think appeals to any audience, queer, straight, French, Australian. What I hope to show through comedy is that we’re all the same at the end of the day. We’re all just freaky fleshballs walking around trying to look important and special with our own brand of traits.
When you take the stage in Perth and Adelaide, what specific “Parisian attitude” are you most excited to unleash on unsuspecting Australian audiences?
I cold open the show as my French character (before continuing the rest of the show as Joshy) and I think that clowny French man character really shakes people up in a great way. It’s kind of like a big breath of fresh air for the audience, like oh this show is gonna be SILLLLLLYYYY I don’t have to stress. The rest they will have to come and see for themselves. But I got some French brash absurdness sprinkled throughout.
Why should people come to see Joshy in Paris?
The world is too serious at times and Joshy in Paris really gives you a fat dose of energy, sharp stand up material and a storyline that allows the audience to switch off and just enjoy like they’re watching a movie.
It’s a story you won’t see anywhere else and that you won’t see told in the same way. That is a certainty. The show also showcases the joy of going after a dream and not worrying about the results. It’s not what we achieve, it’s the person we become along the way that makes anything worth it. Leave feeling warm, inspired and lighter than when you came in.
For people who have never seen your work before, what’s the one thing you hope they’re still talking about on the way home post-show?
I hope people leave just feeling lighter and take an hour to just switch off from the mayhem of life at the moment. I hope they leave with sore bellies and sore jaws from laughing too hard and reeling from some of the ridiculous punchlines I have trickled into my show.
Anything else you would like to add?
Long live the French baguette!
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We thank Joshua Hauville for this interview and look forward to seeing Joshy in Paris.
KEY INFO FOR JOSHY IN PARIS
PERTH FRINGE WORLD
WHAT: Joshy in Paris
WHEN: 7:50pm Wednesday 11 February to Sunday 15 February
WHERE: The Hat Trick at The Pleasure Garden, NORTHBRIDGE
HOW MUCH: Ticket prices (exclusive of transaction fee):
- Full Price $35
- Friends Frenzy $20-24.50
- Preview $28
- Group of 6 or more: $30 per person
HOW: Buy your tickets via this link
ADELAIDE FRINGE
WHAT: Joshy in Paris
WHEN: Two shows only: 7:20pm on both Wednesday 25 February & Thursday 26 February
WHERE: The Den at Dom Polski Centre, ADELAIDE
HOW MUCH: Ticket prices (exclusive of transaction fee):
- Full Price $25
- Health Care Cardholder/Senior/Student $20
HOW : Buy your tickets via this link.
