Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

When far-right rioters were trying to torch hotels and loot Greggs earlier this month, little did they know that they were promoting the work of a British Asian man.

The violent disorder has lent Raul Kholi’s latest show about identity, integration and belonging even greater urgency and relevance, as it revolves around the miserable truth that a hateful minority will never consider him truly English. 

He’s lived here all his life, is a rabid Newcastle United fan, and is a British history buff who knows more about these islands’ past than most natives. Furthermore, his dad was a pillar of the community, running a corner shop in Heaton. 

Now telling jokes in pubs and clubs for a living, Kholi can’t have done more to integrate – although that’s not always a pretty concept as he reveals he dropped his Hindi lessons and stopped going to Bollywood films as racists made him reluctant to embrace his Indian heritage. 

Kholi negotiates complex truths like this with such skill that you barely notice he’s doing it while romping through formative experiences, most notably the bus driver who felt the need to be racist to a child, and the middle-aged woman who represents the best of us by reprimanding the bigot.

You’d expect jokes about colonialism, and that’s what he delivers, less bitter than they could be given his family history is entwined with the horrors of the Indo-Pakistani war over Kashmir, caused by the British partition.

There are side-turns into paedophile gags and a chunk about how unhelpful it can be when people get offended on others’s behalf, but the main thrust is how he isn’t always accepted even where he thinks he should feel most at home. 

How easy the route from that to radicalisation can be, if we’re not careful, he suggests. Just ask Shamima Begum. The show’s conclusion that’s not as clear-cut and positive as anyone would hope.

Kholi’s style can be a little declamatory, but it’s effective, combined with his obvious passion for a subject with first-hand effects. There’s a little audience interaction, notably and hilariously explaining pegging to what looked like a genteel middle-class lady on the front row, but Raul Brittannia is essentially a vital essay he wants to convey

It’s not the funniest show on the Fringe, but it is one of the most important, and driven by personal experience. For someone whose job is not to be taken seriously, Kholi doesn’t half talk a lot of common sense. 

Review date: 23 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett