Review of the comic's latest show in the West End

The promotional material for ALOK Vaid-Menon’s stand-up show calls them ‘a transformative influence in contemporary art, culture, and advocacy’ – and there can be little doubt that the transfeminine Indian-American performer is an eloquent and powerful voice for acceptance. But Hairy Situation is supposed to be a comedy show…

In a heartfelt preamble, they drive home the grim truth of how it’s a tough time to be visible and trans, which seems an understatement in an America gripped by such an insane moral panic that schools are banning dictionaries for their corrupting content. And that’s even before Trump’s second term.

Every day is ‘an audition for our own humanity’, ALOK laments, just one of the many wise aperçus that pepper this establishing section, as they talk thoughtfully about wanting to ‘disentangle my reality from other people’s projections’. But is the comedian merely projecting their own expectations of bigotry on to others? Deep.

Such eloquence belies that fact this is a highly written piece. Even when sharing first-hand anecdotes, ALOK has little of the conversational looseness of stand-up, instead delivering the content more like a theatrical monologue, which inevitably puts distance between performer and audience.

Still, they exude the sort of calm, personable air that might – hopefully – charm even the most rabid transphobe. The delivery is coy, slightly vulnerable, with the occasional upward glances and eyelid fluttering of Princess Diana on Panorama. However, that disguises Alok's more steely determination to be their true self, whatever the opposition.

Important, then, but funny? Sometimes very, other times not so. 

Often ALOK sums up the obstacles they face with a pointed wit. On struggling to get cast, the comic grumbles how ‘People aren’t ready for a gender non-conforming person on the screen… but they are ready for a Cocaine Bear’.

They liken being trans to being an alien, struggling to communicate with a simpler life forms – such as their own supremely passive-aggressive mum. Having to be the representative of a whole demographic also weighs heavily, prompting an amusing gag about having to accept every social engagement as a no-show would amount to erasing a trans person from the landscape.

Alok’s profile rose in the last year with an appearance on Hannah Gadsby’s mixed-bill Netflix special Gender Agenda, which featured an all-genderqueer line-up. But with greater visibility comes greater trolling, which they were forced to endure.

Alok here slaps backs with a funny-cos-it’s true takedown of ‘DudeBro comedy’ and a mocking impression of straight white male comics. 

Talk of putative alphas wanting to assert their masculinity leads to a routine about shaking one’s dick dry after peeing, a more generic bit of stand-up that’s under-written and dwelt on for too long, though elevated by decent act-outs. See, too, the sections on being stoned, the roles ALOK could play as a hairy performer, and the closing chunk about getting a waxing from a woman whose only word of English was ‘bitch’.

But the show always comes back to the comic’s gender identity, with routines that often couches sentiment in the obtuse, blandly reassuring jargon of therapy, gently taking the mickey out of it, but also respectful of how it can help. 

For while ALOK might joke that ‘there’s so much suburban white anxiety in the room right now,’ after one punchline is awkwardly received, that does not reflect the reality. This one-off West End performance of a show that premiered at the last Edinburgh Fringe has attracted the most diverse crowd you’re likely to see at a comedy gig.

‘Very demure, very mindful,’ ALOK has the difficult task of balancing earnestness and comedy. That they don’t shy away from weighty issues, from feeling overwhelmed with disgust at their physical appearance, to suicidal thoughts,  to never feeling safe in public. 

The surprise is not that the show gets weighty and poignant and times, but that it so often doesn’t – it would be easy to collapse under the weight of expectations to represent placed on Alok’s shoulders and the emotional torment they need to process.

They end with a beautiful, inspiring and touching message for fellow trans people to reassure them they are not only seen but loved and admired – a sincere morale-booster that will surely strike an uplifting cord with anyone suffering the darker feelings that Alok’s grappled with and which underlines the emotional heft of the show.

Support came from theatre-maker Travis Alabanza - ‘another brown cross-dresser’ (their words), and boasting a similar attitude as they romped through their identities: trans, half Jewish, half black, dyspraxic - and (forgive me if I’m intolerant of this last  one) a double Scorpio currently going through a Saturn return. 

Although they confess to finding it difficult being truthful on stage, their stories of dating a white guy and getting revenge on their bigoted grandmother now she has Alzheimer’s rang as funny as it did true, and proved a tonally appropriate set-up for Alok’s hard-hitting hour.

Review date: 12 Nov 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Apollo Theatre