Nish Kumar

Radio Times review

If you like Russell Howard but are a little tired of his Good News shtick then it's good news (if you'll excuse the repetition) for you, as this new series sees him return to more traditional stand-up which is where he really shines. Highlights from his set include an unexpected greeting from an old lady and an oddly intense masseuse - not to mention pointing out the fundamental lack of logic in being a racist football supporter.

There are a couple of tweaks to the stand-up format, though, which include Howard answering questions from the audience that range from tame to extremely odd and ultimately result in one toe-curlingly funny moment when the Bristolian comedian inadvertently insults an audience member to almost instant regret.

Here he's joined by Nish Kumar and Sara Pascoe - the latter of whom gets great comedic mileage out of a recent appearance on QI. We'll never look at Stephen Fry's face in quite the same way again...

Nish Kumar interview

The fantastic Nish Kumar brought his completely brilliant 2014 show, Rumination on the Nature of Subjectivity to Manchester last week. We caught up with him before his stint at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, previewing his new show Long Word... Long Word... Blah Blah Blah... I'm So Clever.

Review: Ed Gamble, Group Therapy, Manchester

An endlessly charismatic Ed Gamble headlined April's Group Therapy, with Eric Lampert and MC Nish Kumar providing excellent support.

As a younger show with an "open door" submissions policy - meaning that anyone can send in material for consideration - the topical sketch series Newsjack (Radio 4 Extra, Thursday) ought to be edgier, weirder, less formulaic than The News Quiz; but ends up, somehow, being just as complacent. Currently fronted by the comedian Nish Kumar, with assistance from a revolving cast of comics and actors, it's one of a small group of original, non-archival series on 4 Extra.

This week's half-hour instalment was dispiriting in the way that only really unfunny comedy can be. A skit about a plane that had been forced to land at Heathrow because of a broken lavatory careered out of the radio and landed with a tin clunk on the floor. The nadir was reached during a skit about politicians doing drugs, in which Nicola Sturgeon was represented by someone doing a generic Scottish accent, David Cameron by someone who sounded vaguely like Ed Miliband, Ed Miliband by someone who sounded like a young Janet Street-Porter, and Nigel Farage by a woman making no attempt to do an accent at all.

Why does BBC radio so consistently fudge this kind of thing? Neither series is doing anything that pushes a boundary, finds an edge, or ventures anywhere outside of an ideological comfort zone. Chris Morris's On the Hour, commissioned by Radio 4 nearly 25 years ago, retains more bite in a single sketch than they managed across an hour of broadcast time. Here's hoping it doesn't take another quarter-century for the BBC to try something different.

Five reasons to see Nish Kumar

We predict big things for this smart stand-up over the next 12 months.

December: comedian of the month #11 - Nish Kumar

Nish Kumar is a comedian who I have known of for a while but hadn't seen too much of his stuff until recently.

Nish Kumar picks fantasy comedy bill

Ahead of his run at Soho Theatre, chirpy brain-box Nish Kumar conjures up his dream comedy night...

This week's new live comedy

Previews of Luisa Omielan, Nish Kumar and Tim Key.

Nish Kumar: A man of reason

Everything is subjective, but these things Nish Kumar knows: nobody can tell him how to discuss race; his dad will always wish he'd been a lawyer; and The Big Bang Theory is tripe.