Nish Kumar - NZ Comedy Fest

A friend of mine invited me to a comedy gig last night, super last minute. I knew nothing about him and said I would be keen to go, but asked if he based his humour on racism? She said she had no idea, but it was a risk you always had to take at the Comedy Fest. I agreed to go, and hoped for the best. I WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

It was quite the opposite of what I was dreading.

He talked about everything that was wrong with Colonialism and The British Empire and how they ruined everything for most of the world. He’s Indian, and was born in England and lived there his whole life, and said he is lucky enough to identify as middle class. This made for an interesting point when he was talking about gentrification and he said, essentially my aunties and uncles have been kicked out of areas so that I can live there and not feel bad about it. He also talked about film and television with the specific example of Homeland, and how most of the “Middle-Eastern” characters in that series, aren’t actually even played by Middle Eastern actors, unsurprising but still so frustrating. Most importantly he talked about how rich white men ruined (and continue to) ruin everything for everyone else.

It was hilarious and somewhat uncomfortable for a table in the middle that I have a feeling met that demographic and didn’t find those jokes very amusing. It was educational, my friend said she learnt more than she was expecting to at a comedy gig and had no idea about most of the stuff he was talking about prior to going, which is so cool and most importantly it was so relevant to everything we are studying right now, that I didn’t feel bad that I went out a night before we had an essay due.

There was a whole lot of super relevant stuff and a whole lot of funny stuff that I don’t want to share in the hopes that you will attend. This is more of a plug than it is a blog post but he seems like a really nice dude and he deserves to have The Classic sold out, I THINK YOU SHOULD ALL GO AND SEE HIM. His name is Nish Kumar and he’s great.