Jos Houben is returning to the London International Mime Festival with two shows in January 2016. His classic solo show The Art of Laughter and the world premiere of Marcel, in which he reunites with his colleague from Complicite, Marcello Magni.

The 56-year-old Belgian first performed The Art of Laughter in 2008. Since then it has become a phenomenon, featured on television and on the front page of Le Monde. Not bad for something that started life as a short workshop/lecture on the mechanics of comedy, dissecting what makes us chuckle, from the way we choose to stand to the way we fall over. In one section Houben brilliantly portrays different nationalities as types of cheese. The English stiff as cheddar, the French as soft as a ripe Camembert.

The funniest thing about The Art of Laughter, however, is that Houben is not actually that interested in being funny in front of an audience. “No, no, no, my job is not to be a comedian. I have directed comedians. I have written and devised comedy but in itself I couldn’t care less whether they laugh or not. That little bit of distance gives me a certain calm, gives me a bit of distance.”

He is fascinated by the structure of comedy. “It’s all the little tricks. At the same time as we can totally control we can totally not know why. I’m not so interested in why, I’m interested in when and how.” There are some unforgettable slapstick moments in his solo show. “Laughter is something to do with falling, losing support either on purpose at a fairground, or when something is at stake. When a tramp falls it is not funny because he has already fallen. When the Pope trips its funny, it’s important for us that the Pope can trip. It brings him down…and the whole of the Vatican!”

Despite performing in one of the funniest shows you will see at this year’s Mime Festival – and having an angular body and elastic face and a hint of Jacques Tati about him – Houben insists that he is not a comedian. “I call myself a sort of amateur anthropologist who walks through the jungles of theatre and discovers these fruits and tastes them and ask questions about them. It is not my interest in my life to go onstage and make people laugh.”

He owes much to Complicite. “In the early days of Complicite I would be onstage watching Simon McBurney and Marcello Magni be very funny. I was the straight guy and I learnt a lot about stage and comedy. Then later I worked with The Right Size (Hamish McColl and Sean Foley) and I had the chance to invent. The thing about comedy is you need to be an engineer. it’s construction work and you can touch on things you can’t touch on when you go serious and tragic. I was interested in that.”

It was McColl who helped Houben kick-start The Art of Laughter: “I said I’d give it a go, I just need an opening line and Hamish gave me one. And bang: “This show is about laughter and right now there isn’t any.”

Gradually the piece was refined and gathered momentum. When he was appearing in Paris, Peter Brook heard about it and invited him to perform it at his theatre, Bouffes Du Nord. “He said ‘you must do it’ and he doesn’t like it when you say no. And it just went whoosh.”

Interview continues here.