What’s the point of making comedy that reminds everyone how awful things are? For the first time in Nish Kumar’s work, a note of uncertainty is sounded in his new show about the value of the ex-Mash Report man’s project. For better or worse, he is the pre-eminent comic polemicist of our age, the joker to whom lefties turn, and others revile, for his righteous tirades against racism, neoliberalism and the Tories. But what drove Nish to this, where has it left him – and what good does it do?
No such questions trouble the first section of Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe, which begins – as his previous show did – with a headlong political rant (“like a podcast at double speed”) that elicits cheers as much for vehemence as wit. Here, Sunak, Patel and Braverman are taken down by a British Asian man outraged that they’re supposed to represent him, an already well-worn joke is cracked about Liz Truss killing the Queen, and alternative outcomes are delicately considered (“I will not be Tenacious D’d!”) to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
