I'm trying to maintain a little control over the way the film is sold." Kassovitz was speaking last May, at the Cannes Film Festival, just before Hate opened in Paris. "There are some things I don't feel like doing, even though they would put more bums on seats: appearing on the cover of [the right-wing] Figaro magazine, for example. "Titles are important: they're the first contact a viewer has with a film. When you go into a cinema to see a film called Hate, you don't watch it in the same way as a film called Les Visiteurs," he says, referring to the time-travel comedy that stormed French cinemas two years ago. It is shot in black and white, has no big stars and no funky soundtrack. It's about three youths - one Jewish, one a beur (a North African born in France) and one black - living on a depressed and strife-torn housing estate on the outskirts of Paris And it is called La Haine (Hate). You'd think the director, Mathieu Kassovitz, was determined that no one should see it But Kassovitz has his principles.

"Now it's just people wandering around doing a bit of comedy and seeing if they can get a beer out of it." And it's all the better for it.n Mark Little Sucks continues a national tour until 18 Nov Details: 0171-734 2840. We have an opportunity to talk about whatever we like, and all you can say is 'pants' and 'haircuts'. " Near the end, he contemplated the fact that politics has largely gone out of stand-up. When he was getting interference on his microphone, he called out to the soundman, "Quick, there's a pelican trapped in the ceiling." Finally defeated by gremlins, he asked, "Can we turn this off? I'm just gonna project like Kenneth Branagh." He put down a gaggle of unintelligible hecklers as a Norwegian clown troupe, and became exasperated by the feebleness of audience- suggestions for his act: "Ah, the state of the nation. The chief function of all this seemed to be as a comedy mallet with which to bash Damien Hirst. Frequently popping pills from a "Prozac Tree" at the side of the stage, Little extolled the drug's virtues: "You're so happy, you can watch bloody Bosnia and tape it." He was at his best, though, in unscripted moments. Pre-empting criticism, he laughed at himself: "Good God, what have I come as? A Colombian crack dealer?" He also gained mileage from the set - a spoof artistic installation comprising a duvet hanging from a rail, a duvet in a glass case and a TV set suspended in a fishing- net.

As with all the best members of comedy's Ramblers' Association - Billy Connolly, Eddie Izzard - Little doesn't really talk about anything; you would be hard pressed afterwards to recall a single story. Little's knack is to construct a comic picture by scribbling madly all over a blank page. He certainly looked comic, walking on stage to the sound of music from Pulp Fiction in sun-glasses, a baggy white suit, a loud Hawaiian shirt and sandals. "You've gotta humour them." Having got Neighbours out of his system, he was free to get on with establishing his new identity as an observational stand-up - and a pretty good one, at that. "I know there's a fair whack of you out there who still think Neighbours is a documentary," he sighed. "The big thing people always say to me in the street is, 'I'm sorry Bouncer's dead.' " He kept making a point of swearing to shock people who may have thought to themselves, "Joe Mangel would never use that kind of language." When Little talked about his mother, a heckler shouted out, "We've seen your mum, she's Mrs Mangel." "That's right, Mrs Mangel's my mum," Little replied, smiling patronisingly.