Review of comedian's debut, at the Soho Theatre

It’s quite the achievement for any comedian to perform their first solo show at the Soho Theatre. And while Kiran Saggu’s Slacks has a few too many telltale hallmarks of being her first hour, her personable charisma certainly allows her to owns the studio space.

It’s quickly obvious that she’s warm and sparky, simply a fun person to be around, even if the show can feel more like a collection of club routines at times. They’re funny, but she’s guarded about revealing too much that isn’t an immediate gag. Quick laughs flitting between subjects come at the expense of depth and a sense of purpose. TikTok street interviews are treated with the same contempt as the racism encountered by her parents in 1980s Britain.

As the title suggests, Saggu confesses to being lazy, which could easily reinforce the stereotype of Gen Z just willing a good life without being prepared to put the graft in, though that’s a self-portrait she mostly ignores.

That description of herself comes after  a strong icebreaker gag  insisting her first name isn’t ‘Karen’ and the necessary introduction to her background: born to Punjabi parents and bought up in America and Britain.

First Show Syndrome dictates that her identity is at the corner of the hour - and she identifies primarily as a nepo baby, despite the inconvenience of not having mega-wealthy, famous parents.

But they are well enough off  to offer her the privilege of being able to be stand-up at all – or as she puts it, indulge in ‘clown shit’. That’s not been the case for generations of immigrants who have sacrificed so much and crossed continents in search of a better life.

So she can’t but feel a little guilty that she didn’t have a battle-against-adversity backstory, and isn’t working as hard to be a good representative of ‘her people’ as her forebears did. But at what point can someone break the chain of generational hardship and start enjoying some of the upsides of that better life?

It’s a strong premise, albeit diluted by some more straightforward routines, such as her envisaging a  Notting Hill life when the family moved to London  but winding up in Hounslow, in Heathrow’s grubby shadow.

Slightly deeper. there are some well-aimed jibes at colonialism and awful men, the likes of which you might have heard before. But she posits that the toxicity of both may well be related. 

Some of this material comes from hard-won experience, from English men’s inability to say anything sincere after a date to the general arrogance of every bloke not-so secretly thinking they could do stand-up better than her. Then there are those those who can’t help but comment on women online – in her case via a flimsy story MailOnline concocted based their misinterpreting one of her tweets. Although in the sewage tide of online misogyny, the ones she picks out do not seem so exceptional to be worth commenting upon.

Everything, though, is lifted by her easy likability. 

She’s good at act-outs, too – a sketch illustrating the difference between American and British waiting staff is on the money, and hilariously executed. More broadly, she nails the difference in mindsets between people on both sides of the Atlantic, even if it’s not a wholly original premise.

The payoff is earnest, perhaps a little too much so, but crystallises the real show that is concealed  within this more scattergun hour, with its makeweight material.

As a promising debut, Slacks raises more questions about what she can do next and – sorry to break it to her – that will involve some hard graft. But I suspect she’s probably not nearly as shiftless as she makes out.

Review date: 19 Feb 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre