Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

It looks like it’s been a strong year for new Asian comedians, who represented four of the nine finalists in So You Think You’re Funny? – including winner Joshua Bethania.

The Indian comic, now living in London, dedicated his set to experiences of being an immigrant (‘or "expat" if I’d been white’) alongside wry references to colonialism and how the UK sucks at things it invented, such as cricket.

He’s not pushing boundaries with some of his angles, but his taglines give an extra twist to the sardonic jokes, cheekily striking back at a crumbling oppressor. He has a good sense of unhurried timing and his calm demeanour draws the audience in. Asking the room a question and then riding roughshod over the response certainly shows confidence.

That said, I think I’d have given the prize to Glaswegian Mark Black, who judges placed second. He may have started with the clichéd ‘I know what you’re all thinking…’ lookalike premise – but the punchline was a killer. 

n appealing streak of darkness gives his material an edge, while his robust, punchy delivery indicates a comic who already knows what he’s doing. And considering how many stand-up routines revolve around drugs, he deserves credit for finding a fertile and original new approach.The final – compered by Zoe Lyons, valiantly keeping the energy up over a long night – had begun with

Pravanya Pillay. Describing herself as ‘a grown woman in a child’s body,’ she exudes a sense of striving to be a little different that really appeals. Quirky set-ups such as ‘I love a corporate merger…’ attest to that. There are some decent punchlines, too.

Her performance wasn’t the slickest, but there’s bags of potential in her writing, which is the more crucial factor for newbies, and which earned her joint third place.

In contrast, Prakash Jirjadhun seemed to rely on a few too many stock ‘…and that was just the teachers!’ style punchlines in a routine that mainly harvested low-hanging fruit. He’s got a shade of Paul Chowdhry’s F.U. bluntness, but doesn’t really earn the arrogance with his over-familiar material.

Another change of approach with Rohan Sharma, a far more self-effacing presence who ekes laughs from his social awkwardness and his struggles to express emotions. He lays claim to some smart wordplay and a savvy approach to the world, occasionally let down by weaker gags. But promising stuff overall.

Musical comic Ben Pollard has the jaunty, slightly eccentric energy of a young pre-introspective Bo Burham, even if the gags can’t live up to that exacting standard. With some weird one-liners between his numbers, Pollard is playful with the audience, ordering them not to chuckle at his serious ballads, so making laughs all the more likely. He’s an engaging presence, and it’d be interesting to see where he lands in a couple of years’ time.

Proudly ignorant of world events, Lithuanian comic Justina Seselskaite plays up to the persona of happy but naive foreigner, susceptible to being misled into what qualifies as an expensive date in the UK. Away from that, she has an OK sex joke and a facile line evoking a Venn diagram, a device which quite a lot of stand-ups seem to have taken to, with the whole set bolstered by her cheerily engaging presence.

A mixed bag, too, from the relatively deadpan Daniel Petrie. His opener about the Teletubbies was strong and surreal, but talk of his breakup elicited more sympathy than laughs. Saying he didn’t like Eurovision ‘because he’s straight’ seemed inaccurately reductive and saying his left-handedness was ‘on a spectrum’ seemed to be trivialising autism – without a strong enough joke to justify it. 

Finally, Jack Skipper brought just the no-nonsense blokey energy of a working-class South Londoner that the gig needed at this late stage.

A carpet-fitter by day, he portrays himself as something of an unintelligent philistine – indeed, he seems to revel in it – but the stance gives him good jokes, so why not? Already something of a TikTok star, with almost 8 million likes, his first moves on to the live stage have got off to a cracking start, by sharing the bronze in this 35th year of So You Think You're Funny?

Review date: 27 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot