★★☆☆☆
As one of the brightest sparks in British stand-up, Ahir Shah knows the challenge he has making his new show interesting. Indeed, he owns up to it from the start. “This show is basically a chronicle of what’s happened to me over the past 18 months,” he says. And, as he points out, we have all been living through the same cataclysm during that time. So, alas, any variations between Shah’s woes — no work, stuck at home with a new partner and too much time to re-evaluate his significance or lack of it — and one’s own are rarely great enough to stop one from thinking: “Oh please no! Not more talk of lockdowns and Matt Hancock and Zoom calls and Ottolenghi recipes!”
Twice nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy award, Shah, more than most comedians, needs a thesis to help to take his social, political and personal observations from adroit to acute. If in the past he sometimes gave himself too many big themes to handle, here he jitters from one idea to another. He talks about hastily moving in with his new partner as Covid hit, later about how they split. He ends up talking about declaring love for his new girlfriend, which strengthens the sense that he is addressing ideas and feelings he hasn’t yet had the time to process fully.
Shah being Shah, some of his jokes are beautifully written, some of his ideas are good enough that you long for him to develop them. He equates unblinking leftism with coming from privilege; he jabs at the “censorious children on Twitter”; best of all he argues why we dismiss the idea that Covid originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology only because that would mean agreeing with the racist fool Trump. Fascinating. Tell us more.
Elsewhere he deals in too many overfamiliar ideas — do we need to hear again about how awful the Bullingdon Club is? Don’t we already know that banks who declare their passion for diversity in their ads aren’t entirely to be believed? Shah is a huge talent, but he is still getting his thoughts together here.
To November 13. Touring to March 10, 2022. ahirshah.com