‘There’s a moment when that ends,” muses Li Jin Hao, “and this begins …” As well as being jam-packed with swoonsome one-liners like that, Li’s show traces the tension between this and that; the draw the past exerts on this self-proclaimed Mr Nostalgia, versus the necessity of living in the present. Beginning with a yearning sun-and-moon myth learned at his granny’s knee, Li’s show – nominated for the Edinburgh comedy award – toggles between a day in his current London life and memories of his upbringing in east Asia, and a long-gone romance he can’t quite shake off.
What makes the show distinctive, though, is the ruminative angle at which Li addresses his experiences, and the quality and consistency of its joke-writing – so many ravishing little insights revealing the world to us in shapes askew. It’s a leap forward from his 2024 debut, which signalled the talent but was sheepish in its delivery. The only thing sheepish here is the twisty livestock gag that opens Li’s show, with a swagger that marks a performer now in his element onstage.
