Nish Kumar & Milton Jones - Mark Muldoon's Comedy Diary

Written by: Mark Muldoon
Published: Monday 9th September 2024

Do we need to worry about Nish Kumar? It's just, he's talking very fast. And that's by Nish Kumar standards.

Yes, the material is densely-packed in his new tour show, Nish Don't Kill My Vibe, particularly during a scorching 20 minutes before the interval, where - as is customary - he offers his takes on various right-wing political figures that have dominated our discourse since the last tour. It's a Kumar staple no less successful for the fact that, for the first time, he's discussing most of them in the past tense.

That laugh rate does eventually ease, but only really shifts down into fourth gear. That is, before things get a little more serious and personal in the closing stages of the show - as Kumar shares his political red lines and details his anxiety disorder. These moments - where the show deprioritises humour - are brief, but still may put some pockets of the audience off. You get the impression that Nish doesn't fill his tours with the things he wants to say, but the things that he needs to say. And besides: there's probably 2hrs 30mins of generally excellent material here that's been condensed into 1hr 45min on stage - you could hardly accuse him of adding in these sections in order to pad the show out.

There's two other things that Kumar should be particularly commended for. In the British comedy scene there's currently an extreme lack of comedians discussing Palestine. Nish implies that he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he didn't. Still, the fact that he's doing so - and has worked out how to tackle the subject humorously - should not go without substantial credit.

He should also be applauded for keeping ticket prices admirably low. Don't expect to be shelling out as much as it tends to cost to see his contemporaries, put it that way. Given just how much exemplary comedy there is to be found in this show, it's quite the retail offering, but hey, that's socialists for you.

Speaking of comedians known for their densely-packed material, Milton Jones faces the same extremely challenging task that every one-liner comedian faces when writing a full length show: keeping the quality consistently good throughout, whilst also ensuring the audience don't tire of the quick-fire format. It's a rare show that manages it, and he doesn't quite succeed in this new tour, the pleasingly-titled Ha!Milton. But it's debatable whether that should even register as a criticism, given the difficulty in pulling it off once, let alone on successive tours.

So let's be clear: it's a joke-packed show. You'll find that same impressive density of punchlines here, but this time it's all silly, fun, low stakes one-liners.

For anybody fearing that Milton favours a quantity-rather-than-quality approach, you don't need to be desperately concerned - there's enough excellent, inventive punchlines here to ensure fans aren't leaving disappointed. Such treats are, admittedly, peppered in amongst some material that feels more like it's scraping the barrel, but that's hardly surprising for 80 minutes of one-liner humour. You never get bored, and that's undeniably to Milton's credit.

If a joke of more questionable quality arrives, he'll sometimes have the good sense to lean further into it, embracing its cheesiness, bringing the audience on board. It's family fun - which certainly shouldn't be taken as criticism. Slightly oddly, though, there's very few under 18s in attendance. Maybe that's partly to do with the price, which feels a little on the expensive side for what this show is. It's definitely a fair amount more costly than Nish's tour, despite the fact you'd have to say this is the less essential of the two.

Things also tend to get less vital when the action transfers to the huge upstage screen. Elsewhere, there's attempts to pull strands of the show together cohesively, which rank amongst the show's weakest elements. Though, in fairness, it's perhaps worth questioning whether anybody showed up tonight hoping to see a bravura performance of boundary-pushing, cohesive and nuanced theatrical craft. More likely, we're here because we've seen Milton smash some dope one-liners on the telly and we want more where that came from thankyouverymuch. That's where this show is at its best.

Read previous editions of this column (featuring Ivo Graham, Stamptown, Olga Koch and Kiri Pritchard-McLean).

Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram and Twitter. He wants to make a public service announcement that Ahir Shah's Edinburgh Comedy Award winning show 'drops' on Netflix tomorrow, Tues 10th Sept. It is fantastic you simply must watch it.