FESTIVAL COMEDY | Nish Kumar & Bridget Christie
Nish Kumar is
back at the Fringe after a gloriously successful 2012. He tells Brian Donaldson
that his new show tackles identity,
offensiveness and vomiting near trains
‘I’m the Jilly Cooper of Edinburgh’
‘O nce you’ve heard your mother laugh at the phrase “an erection tinged with nostalgia”, all bets are off.’ Nish Kumar’s 2012 Fringe show was a frank, personal and clearly deeply awkward analysis of family (his story of an evening at the cinema with his dad to see the sexually explicit Shame was a particular highlight), identity (‘I have an ethnically ambiguous face’), and his undying obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it was hilarious with it: quite how he didn’t end up on one of the main award shortlists is bafl ing, but that’s probably a story for another day.
The family discomfort didn’t end with his parents coming to see the show in August, however. ‘Once the shock was over, they brought my aunt and uncle to see it at [London’s] Soho Theatre and my aunt thought it was racy: I’m the Jilly Cooper of Edinburgh.’ And happily, the father-and-son trips to the movies are still an ongoing feature of their relationship. ‘We go to the cinema about once a month and after Shame, the next one he suggested was The Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel, which I think he thought would be perfectly i ne. Turns out it’s a load of old people banging, so if anything it’s worse. But we’ve now fully recovered.’ So, with all that anxiety settling down, he has been able to focus on his 2013 solo show, Nish Kumar is a Comedian, which touches once more on identity, triggered by his publicity picture from last year which did the rounds as an internet meme under the title of The Confused Muslim (confused: maybe; Muslim: no). ‘So after a year where I mentioned I had a face that people struggled to place globally, I’ve now been mistaken for a whole other religion. That’s a jumping-off point for me to talk about lots of other stuff as well as identity. I’m interested in offence and why people take offence in certain ways about certain things. But let me be clear right now: there’s also a long discussion about wiping your arse and vomiting on train platforms.’
Kumar has been in and around the Fringe for several years, predominantly as one half of a t y as o e a o
a yea s, p edo
THE WRITE STUFF Bridget Christie tells David Pollock that everyday misogyny drives her on
Following on from her Radio 4 series, Bridget Christie Minds the Gap, the comic has had the mantle of ‘feminist comedian’ placed upon her shoulders. Fortunately she approves. ‘I’m very happy to be thought of as a feminist comedian,’ Christie says. ‘I have no problems with the label. I would be honoured. A feminist anything is a good thing.’ In that vein, her Fringe show this year is about ‘the emancipation of women, how everything is far
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(( from being hunky dory, and ing hunky dory, and how stupid misogyny is.’ upid misogyny is.’ The title (A Bic for Her), tle (A Bic for Her ),r refers to a biro pen that o a biro pen that has been launched which en launched which is specifically designed fically designed with a woman’s hand in woman’s hand in mind. ‘We weren’t really We weren’t really able to use pens before use pens before these ones were designed,’ nes were designed,’ she says. ‘That’s why s. ‘That’s why Mary Shelley’s helley’s Frankenstein nstein is so shit and it and unscary.’ y.’ Christie feels a new new
sketch duo the Gentlemen of Leisure, but he admits that 2012 was a breakthrough year for him. ‘Am I a Fringe veteran?’ he says, laughing at the very notion. ‘I feel like a veteran underdog. Last year was dei nitely my most successful year, but I love the social aspect of it where all the comics are all together in one place: the i rst day of Edinburgh is like the i rst day back at school − there’s that same kind of excitement. But I like the process of putting a show together and the impact that Edinburgh has on me as a performer. I’m speaking hypothetically here, but I imagine it’s like when you’ve been doing exercise for a long time and you just feel better the more you do it. August is the time when I can feel myself getting stronger as a comedian. I’m at the height of my powers come September, when there are no gigs.’ Nish Kumar is a Comedian, Underbelly, Bristo Square, 0844 545 8252, 3–25 Aug, 8.10pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 3 Ju ug, £6 31 Jul–2 Aug, £6.
sensibility in comedy, where politics sensibility in comedy, wh are discussed more than they have are discussed more tha been since the 1980s, and she’s been since the 1980s, excited to be a part of it. But she excited to be a part o hadn’t realised that talking about hadn’t realised that t feminism would be such hard feminism would be work. ‘We didn’t think about work. ‘We didn’t th that, did we? That we might that, did we? That actually have to do something actually have to d with all these opportunities with all these opp and freedom. Crikey. Me and freedom. Cr and my big mouth.’ and my big ■ Bridget Christie: ■ Bridget A Bic for Her, The A Bic for Stand, 558 7272, Stand, 3–25 Aug (not 12), 3–25 A 11.10am, £10 (£9). 11.10a