COMEDIAN Yianni Agisilaou realised that writing a show focusing on The Simpsons gave him the perfect excuse to re-watch all the best episodes.

His new creation, The Simpsons Taught Me Everything I Know, is currently on tour in the UK and stops off in Swindon next week.

Yianni is a huge fan of the sitcom cartoon and soon realised that a large chunk of the world’s population had a secret language using quotes from The Simpsons.

“My friends and I have complete conversations simply using Simpson quotes. It is a sort of bionic extension to language, a worldly knowledge, and you can learn from it,” said Yianni.

So the comedian looked at this phenomenon, which started life on the Tracy Ullman Show in 1987, and realised it had become the biggest cartoon sitcom since the Flintstones.

So he reached for his pen.

Many big stars have appeared on the cartoon but Yianni dreams of voicing one of the characters, and two years ago he nearly had his chance.

There was a rumour that Harry Shearer, who does the voices for 10 of the regular characters, including Reverend Lovejoy, Charles Montgomery Burns, Ned Flanders and Principal Seymour Skinner, wanted to leave the show to do other things.

“I am a big fan of doing voices and impressions, so for a giggle I made a video of me doing his characters and gave it to my agent,” said Yianni. “That was the super random thing, she knew the people behind The Simpsons and sent it to them and they liked the video, but no more came of it. Every time the phone rings I still hope — maybe.”

Yianni, whose parents are Cypriots, was born in Australia, and now lives in the UK.

He trained to be a lawyer but during his university years he became passionate about stand-up comedy. He took a gap year to explore the possibilities, spending five months in London where he realised the Brits had a bigger comedy scene than Down Under.

“I fairly quickly decided where my passion lay but I went back for the year to qualify as a lawyer and then when Cyprus was admitted to the EU I returned to the UK to stay,” he said.

The comic says he thoroughly enjoyed his time entertaining the troops in both Cyprus and the Falkland Islands. He said that those returning from combat zones go through 48 hours of what they call decompression. They are given 48 hours of R ‘n’ R, they go to the beach, have a barbecue, listen to a band and are entertained by comedians.

“I flew out for a week and had a varied group every night made up of very different people, from squaddies to upper class officers,” he said.

The comedian writes all his own shows, and he is hoping the next step is getting a script accepted for television. He has one in hand exploring Noah, God, the Devil and Eve.

He is no stranger to appearing on TV, having performed on Take The Mike for ITV and Raw Comedy for ABC Australia and his recent offering at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, Pockets Of Equality, was chosen by Melbourne Festival to be televised.

Tickets to see Yianni in Swindon are £14.50 from 01793 524481 or visit www.swindontheatres.co.uk.

— Flicky Harrison