Edinburgh Fringe review by Sophie Cartman

Forget Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man, Paul Sinha thinks there are only two: you are either on your way up or you’re on your way out. It’s for you to decide which camp he fits into.

He certainly looks healthier, having lost weight after successfully battling diabetes, although his eyes are weary. And his life and career seem OK. He is in a new relationship and able to turn his nose up at crazy reality TV offers.

Perhaps inevitably, he compared himself to his father, who had a cardiac arrest in his fifties, and wondered if that was his future?

He constantly shows us his dark side by the quickfire mocking of the likes of Bill Cosby’s family values and the Jill Dando murder, bleak topics which are still funny because he places them so unexpectedly among his descriptions. 

He throws in witty jokes at a point – even when the subject matter could hardly be more serious. When he’s talking about the prospect of his own rape he’s more worried about the other man’s grammar. These quips constantly keep us in the palm of his hand.

Sinha takes us back in time to the end of his first year of medical school, and unashamedly tells us he failed his anatomy exams, twice, playing on the idiom ‘didn’t know his arse from his elbow’ quite literally.

He constantly references his work on ITV’s The Chase and his fear of being recognised in public. That may sound arrogant,but his feelings of inferiority are rife as he talks about how hard it is to be a middle-aged man, dealing with the thought of being judged, and comparing himself to his younger white boyfriend.

Sinha is a man of intelligence and contemplates this stage in life as anyone would in their late 40s. He exclaims he’s decided to grow up and deal with things like his phobias, that include needles, Russian accents and going to the doctor. Odd since he’s a former GP who has no problem with other people’s pain, just his own.

More seriously, he reveals a neurosis about getting old and shows his sensitivity of dealing with a sick parent, pulling us in with a sweet comment, only for the spell to be broken with a silly punchline.

That’s typical of the thoughtful, the deeply personal and the witty that makes Two Ages Of Man a very funny hour.

Review date: 18 Aug 2018
Reviewed by: Sophie Cartman
Reviewed at: Stand 1