Rory Bremner: You don't have to be an oyster

Comedian Rory Bremner, 41, is famous for his impersonations and satirical TV shows. He has also recorded voices for Spitting Image and translated two operas. He appears at the Edinburgh Fringe this week.

Edinburgh is your home town. What do you look forward to most about being there during the Festival?

The buzz: if you park your car in Champagne, someone will plant a vine on it. It's the same in Edinburgh during the Festival: if you leave a door open, a group of students from Krakow will move in and perform a mime workshop. Other things I'm looking forward to: walking everywhere; the Laigh Coffee House; the Meadows; Arthur Smith; revisiting childhood haunts; bumping into old friends; avoiding old enemies..

Give us a little sample of your show this year.

George Bush springs to mind: "We have to step up the campaign against tourism. Right now this town is full of tourists. You have to close the tourist information centre." And then of course there's Iain Duncan Smith: "I've been going everywhere and listening. I was in Sweden the other day, and do you know I was listening so hard I didn't say a single word. It was only when I got home that it struck me that the one thing I should have said was, "I'm terribly sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand Swedish." IDS has the potential to be one of the great comic characters in politics.

Do you still enjoy doing live stand-up and does the prospect of your West End run make you nervous?

Yes to both. Live stand-up is a different discipline, one I've taken for granted before now. I've got so used to doing half-hour spots and writing and performing weekly TV shows that I'd forgotten the process of putting together a longer live set. The TV shows are topical, which means material can date quickly, and satirical, which means it's often as much an argument as a comic routine. People come to the theatre to be entertained, so some of the more didactic pieces have to go. Around two-thirds of the Edinburgh stuff should be new. If I don't do Bill McLaren [the rugby commentator] I won't be allowed home.

Has your degree in French and German ever been useful in your career?

The authors I read then still influence me, and in the last few years I've translated a couple of operas: Kurt Weill's Der Silbersee and Bizet's Carmen. Translation is like parody, except instead of taking the original and making it work for comedy, you're taking it and making it work in English. It's the ultimate jigsaw puzzle.

You have reportedly suffered from anorexia and stress. Is unhappiness a precondition for funny people?

You mustn't believe everything you read in the papers. As for unhappiness being a precondition, you'd have to ask my therapist. Brecht did point out that only sick oysters produce pearls. But then I'm not an oyster. And right now I'm very happy.

You share a birthday with Paul Daniels and Ian Paisley. Is there any positive way of seeing that?

Yes: they're at least 20 years older than me. But if you put 21 people in a room there's a 99 per cent chance that two of them will share the same birthday. Try it.

Rory Bremner, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh (0131 226 2428) today to Saturday. Rory Bremner, John Bird and John Fortune, Albery Theatre, London WC2 (020 7369 1730) from 30 September