Ahir Shah, Dress, review: not yet the razor-sharp pandemic show it could be
“It’s difficult to know what to talk about,” says Ahir Shah, apologetically. Like every confessional comedian at the moment, the two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee is in a bind. Don’t mention the pandemic, and it becomes a bemasked elephant in the room. Alternatively, joke about your grim but unremarkable experience of lockdown, and risk killing the mood by offering an unwelcome reminder of the audience’s own. What happens, he asks, when every “Hey guys, do you remember…?” prompts the same reply: “Yes, and we’re trying desperately to forget.”
The young British Indian (“or Alpha Delta, as we’re now known”) takes the latter tack in his new stand-up hour, Dress, a soft-centred account of his past 18 months. The title nods to its central thread about beginning a live-in lockdown relationship that became “a dress rehearsal for marriage”, and the ensuing break-up, “a dress rehearsal for divorce”. It’s an unfortunate irony that on press night Dress felt more like a dress rehearsal for a work in progress than the finished thing.
On a good day, the ex-Footlight is one of the outstanding British comedians of his anxious thirtysomething generation. A stand-up since the age of 15, he’s matured from a fiery, know-it-all polemicist into a thoughtful, self-doubting philosopher-comic, his cleverest lines ringing with the wisdom of a well-turned aphorism. His recent HBO streaming special Dots caught him on a very good day; Tuesday’s show at the Soho Theatre did not.
A tried-and-tested opening bit from that HBO special about predictive text converting his name to another four-letter word fell flat. Early on, between vaping and checking his notes, a palpable lack of confidence was overcompensated for by too much volume, while misjudged timing and a jittery stage presence failed to put the audience at ease.
He finally found his stride 20 minutes into his set, with a wonderfully funny routine about the outcome of his lockdown liquid diet: he ended up with scurvy. “If only I’d put lime in the gin…” (Incidentally, Shah isn’t alone in contracting a Dickensian ailment over the past year. Beardy provocateur Garrett Millerick’s new stand-up show is partly about getting gout.)
Shah’s last couple of Edinburgh Fringe shows balanced complex ideas and distinctive political commentary with a sweeter personal streak. In Dress, the sentimental side is in order – a bit about becoming a soup-making “house husband” in lockdown charms, while an anecdote about a lockdown-defying hug with his elderly father provides the cockle-warming pay-off it strives for. But, aside from a winningly Stewart Lee-ish howl against the “woke capitalism” of Lloyds Bank, the political material here is weaker. In particular, a routine about the image of Matt Hancock “touching a butt” outstays its welcome, and doesn’t deserve a later callback.
I’ve no doubt Shah is capable of a sharp pandemic show: on the club circuit, I’ve seen him test out an excellent, brainy routine covering 250 years in the history of variolation and vaccination. I’d rather have seen it in Dress than some of his material about a romantic relationship that is evidently still being processed. If humour is – as the old chestnut has it – tragedy plus time, a couple of centuries’ perspective might help.
Ahir Shah is at the Soho Theatre until Nov 13. Tickets: ahirshah.com
