A show of two halves, this one, from Indian standup Aditi Mittal, who rakes over Covid coals for its first 30 minutes, before a pivot to much sparkier material on a certain unnamed Indian prime minister and that country’s richest man. Perhaps we should forgive the relative weakness of that opening section, which recounts, after all, a period in which standups unavoidably lost some match fitness. But that can’t quite excuse Mittal’s so-so material on the subject, describing her scramble back to India on the eve of lockdown, and the mask-wearing, Zoom-gigging, socially distanced life that followed.
“Unalive” is how the 35-year-old describes her experience of lockdown, and how she titles this show. It also, alas, describes some inanimate jokes here, like the one that tries to explain Mittal’s resistance to masks, or her argument in favour of younger boyfriends, which feels less like a gag, more like an underdeveloped thought. Or the offputtingly glib remarks about Mumbai’s supposed imperviousness to Covid.
Maybe I felt this more acutely because of the subject matter, but there’s something effortful here in the sustaining of Mittal’s outrageous, wisecracking persona. There are plenty of gags about fingering and “apocalypse horniness” – and, to be fair, a fine one about funerals on Zoom working to a 40-minute time limit – but not much that feels fresh or authentic about her Covid experience.
The later stages have more life to them. Some audiences may bridle at Mittal’s finite patience for modern mental-health pieties, but for me, her withheld sympathy for rich depressives brought a welcome edge to the show. How about fat-shaming one scion of India’s wealthiest dynasty? It might not be sympathetic but, again, it throbs with eat-the-rich impudence, against squillionaire oligarch Mukesh Ambani and, as Mittal would have it, his puppet populist PM.
It could be the novelty, to western ears, of these satires on a society distant from our own – or the perception that (given Modi’s intolerance of criticism) Mittal is putting something on the line by delivering them. Either way, they end the show on a high, redeeming the by-numbers coronavirus comedy that goes before.
At Soho theatre, London, until 17 June
