Fringe Therapy: Andrew Lawrence

Would you describe yourself as a happy person?
AL: I think I would describe myself as having interludes of happiness while going through a gamut of different emotions. In my everyday life some of them will happen to be happy emotions but I wouldn't describe myself as being a happy person. I think people who say they are happy all the time, people who just can't stop being happy, I think that's a sign of mental illness. It's like a mental old man who sits by the sea shore all day watching boats and you ask him why and he say 'because it makes me happy'. But really its all perspective because someone else could watch those boats go by and feel they were wasting their day.

What's your first thought when you wake up in the morning?
AL: What have I got to do today? Not really, my first thought is that I should have got up at least two hours earlier as I'm very lazy. Then I think to myself, what do I have to do today?

Would you say you have a fixation with being unpopular?
AL: I've always had patches of being unpopular. The argument I put forward in my show (Social Leprosy For Beginners and Improvers) is that on this very densely populated island it is very difficult to avoid other people. A lot of them are not very pleasant, some are actually quite obnoxious. So what's better than turning yourself into a social lepper and getting other people to avoid you?

What advice would you give to any prospective social lepers out there?
AL: My number one tip for becoming a social lepper is to entirely transgress all boundaries of what is socially acceptable. There are many ways of doing that, its all about just finding what's right for you.

Could you describe your most recent dream?
AL: Its pretty difficult actually. I don't tend to remember my dreams, that might be quite telling in itself.

Maybe you don't eat enough cheese...
AL: Perhaps that it, perhaps I should get on the cheese. But I'm not a cheese fan though, I don't eat cheese to be honest, I just find the thought of eating something that has come out of a cow's stomach repulsive.

You seem rather closed. Have you ever had a recurring dream? Don't worry, you can share...
AL: Well, there was one dream from when I was nine or ten. I'm asleep and a monstrous green hand comes up from the side of the bed and then everything goes dark and I've just disappeared. The next morning my parents are looking for me and they can't find me and they look out of the window and its raining. That's it really, my only vivid dream - it's actually a bit of a nightmare really.