Nish Kumar tells Anna Stewart how his comedy is like 'a collective blood-letting'

‘GAZA. ART. RADICALISATION. DEATH. ANXIETY. RAGE.’

These are the words scribbled in permanent marker across Nish Kumar’s crumpled setlist. It is from this existentialist smorgasbord that the comedian draws his latest hour of political comedy. Without the necessary context, they read like the ramblings of a madman. And with it, as their author well knows, they read much the same. 

‘It’s deranged’" Kumar laughs. ‘There are points where I have an out-of-body experience and I'm like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?! These people have paid, they’ve had a hard week at work –  why are you doing this to them?!’’

But that is exactly what his fans seek. ‘I do stand-up comedy about unfunny things,’ he muses. ‘That is what I do and that's what I do in the show.’

We’re connecting over video call in February, a few days before Kumar kicks off several months of international touring with his new show Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe, which is currently at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. 

Characteristic of Kumar’s performance style, it mixes frenetic delivery with colossal political knowledge. A recent performance in the US prompted New York Times critic Jason Zinoman to ask, ‘Is this British flame thrower the comic best suited to take on Trump?’ It’s an enormous ask of any one person – let alone a comedian – but, as co-host of the weekly politics podcast Pod Save the UK, Kumar’s credentials are such that he will be expected to do that and more. Audiences in every country Kumar visits will be eager for him to torch their unique political contexts.

‘The cool thing about doing a stand-up show over this length of time, especially one that's political, is that it’s constantly changing,’ says Kumar. ‘When you do political comedy, it's fine to talk about your country's politics or America's politics. But when you go to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it's going to feel weird if you don't acknowledge their particular political context, especially in an Australian and Canadian election year.’

Between the election and the defeat of the Indigenous Voice referendum to give Aboriginal Australians greater recognition, there’s plenty that many of us would happily let Kumar take his flamethrower to.

Beyond politics, Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe also explores bigger-picture ideas about the essence of comedy. Having grown tired of criticism demanding he take a more palatable, observational approach to stand up – ‘Why can't you just talk to people about the stuff that's in their fridge?’ – Kumar sets out to understand why he is attracted to bleak subject matter. 

‘I guess if there are two questions that the show is trying to answer, the first is, "Can you do stand-up comedy about exclusively unfunny subjects?" And then the second is "Why would you do that?’"

I caught Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe last year at the Edinburgh Fringe, when it was still a work in progress – and where the radically unfunny political context in the UK brought these questions to the fore. The country was ablaze with race riots after misinformation about the Southport stabbings – in which three young girls under were killed – fuelled Islamophobic violence.

‘It really frightened me,' Kumar remembers, his cheerful countenance dulled. ‘It was a proper safety concern. Friends of mine were like, "Where are your parents? Are family members wearing hijabs safe to be out in the street?" One was told by the police, "Maybe just don't go out outside today." This stuff was very real.’

He says that on stage, ’I was just doing what I've always done, which is to try to make jokes about things that scare me, but in a way that doesn't necessarily undermine the real emotions that are at the core of all of this stuff… It’s like a collective blood-letting. You just stick the leech on and let yourself bleed a little bit.’

This balance between real emotion and relief is not an easy one to strike. Just how precarious a tightrope walk it was became obvious when an audience member, eager to contribute, raised their hand with a smile on their face, but tears in their eyes.

When I ask if he remembers the incident, Kumar drops his head onto an open palm. Through a nervous laugh, he says, ‘I’m the absolute worst at giving interviews designed to sell tickets. "Let's talk about a time an audience member openly wept!"

Kumar avoids taking credit for his deft handling of the exchange. By checking in with the person, acknowledging that he shared their sense of terror, then continuing to discuss the source of that terror, he allowed the weight of the exchange to be felt without it grinding the show to a halt. 

Within seconds of this audience member’s extreme vulnerability, Kumar somehow got us laughing again – not out of a lack of sensitivity, but because his mastery of the tension between comedy and horror made it the only natural thing to do.

It struck me as the perfect distillation of the show’s title, Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe.

‘I think people feel that there's more art and skill in what I do. [But] it is kind of what I'm like in real life all the time.’

It’s true, no one who watches Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe will leave feeling like they spent an hour with a stand-up persona. Kumar’s performance is too racked with idiosyncrasies and references to personal ​mental health to be mistaken for anything other than genuine interiority. 

Perhaps it is the sense of witnessing Kumar’s authentic self which makes it possible for him to segue seamlessly between light and dark, laughter and tears. The emotional rollercoaster feels natural because Kumar is riding it before our eyes. 

• Nish Kumar is at Melbourne International Comedy Festival until April 20, before continuing his Australian and New Zealand tour, then returning to the UK for dates from May 12. International tour dates

• Anna Stewart is a freelance culture writer based in Australia.

Published: 9 Apr 2025