The last time I saw Nick Mohammed live, I witnessed one of the all-time theatrical calamities, as the opening night of his West End Christmas Carol(ish) was abandoned after unrelenting technical difficulties. Talk about bouncing back: this new show is the opposite of that epic fail, a deliriously enjoyable hour of comedy meets magic meets more of the real Mohammed than we’ve ever before seen on stage. That’s a surprise, given he’s in character as his alter ego, the camp and bumptious northern know-it-all Mr Swallow. But the persona is more porous than before, transforming into Mohammed before our eyes – as if this were a coming out party for a comedian who has remained incognito until now.
For long-term watchers of the Ted Lasso man, that could hardly be more fascinating – the more so because Mohammed tells us it’s strategic, that he’s been compelled to get personal for careerist reasons. There’s a racial dimension to that, too, which he endlessly teases in Show Pony, replaying an encounter with a TV producer demanding Mohammed’s sitcom pitch be more ethnic, and offering up a fantastically twisty sketch about his supposedly white right foot.
