Aarian Mehrabani on how a terrifying health scare made him consider his legacy

Most of you will likely have no idea who I am (which is very, very fair). But if you have come across my work before, it is most likely because my theatre company FlawBored brought a show, It’s A MotherF**king Pleasure, to the Fringe in 2023, leading to invitations to perform around the world – including an off-Broadway run in the same venue where Phoebe Waller-Bridge staged Fleabag, and Hannah Gadsby performed  Nanette. 

With TV interest, too, we thought our careers were about to take off.

Then, four days after we landed back from New York, I was in Crewe delivering a corporate communication workshop. As I left I felt super sick and started throwing up. After a trip to the hospital, I was told it was just vertigo, and it would pass in a few days.

But it didn’t pass. No. Over the course of the next three weeks, I was bedbound, unable to walk, and throwing up five or six times a day. The doctors kept saying it was a bad case of vertigo. But eventually they scanned my brain and found that it was a very large, aggressive brain cancer.

I was told there was a high likelihood I wouldn’t survive, and I immediately started thinking about my legacy. I realised that I wanted to be remembered for my work. As someone who made good work. And I tore myself apart thinking that I hadn’t done enough.

Yes, we’d had some success with It’s a MotherF**king Pleasure, but was that enough? I co-wrote that, and if I die, the rest of them will go on to have incredible careers, and I’ll be forgotten.

Now I had never done stand-up at this point, but it’s something I’d always wanted to try. And having no clue what I was promising myself, swore that if I survived, I would pull my finger out and finally start doing stand-up. And I would take a show up to the next Edinburgh Fringe. So maybe, I could be remembered.

Spoiler: I didn’t die.

And while I was still going through chemo in October 2024, I somehow got a commission from The Lowry in Salford to transition into stand-up comedy, and develop my debut hour for Edinburgh 2026.

Now full credit to the team at The Lowry, they had so much faith in me and my ability to transition into stand-up. But also, I had never stepped foot onto a stand-up stage. Commissioning a debut stand-up hour to be ready before I’d been doing stand-up for 18 months is so ballsy. Someone really should have stopped them, and me. 

But no one did…so I’m opening my debut hour, ’How’s Your Head?" at this year's Fringe.

And yes, I am petrified. But It’s given me such a purpose and drive. I needed to gig every night I could and write as much as humanly possible, because I knew that I had to have a full hour ready by August 2026…huh…

I’ve literally just realised that even if the show crashes and burns, it’s massively accelerated my recovery from cancer.

When I started gigging, I had just moved from a Zimmer frame to crutches, and I was throwing up in the toilets before every gig (half the promoters in London are convinced I have a really bad coke problem). But I’ve had to push through it because I knew I had to be ready for Edinburgh…wow…I’m sorry that you had to read along as I realised that in real time.

So win, lose or draw. I can look at myself in the mirror and know that I gave it a go…OMG! I was about to make a joke about looking in the mirror and realised that I have somehow forgotten to mention that I’M BLIND!

That’s an insanely significant piece of information that I’ve totally neglected to mention – but I don’t wanna rewrite this whole thing… so…surprise, I guess.

• Aarian Mehrabani: How’s Your Head? is on at Underbelly George Square at 4:45pm  

Published: 10 Aug 2026