Aditi Mittal: Global Village Idiot

Aditi Mittal doesn't convince as a village idiot. But if hers is the role of the wise fool, bringing enlightenment to her people and, in turn, educating foreigners with humour, then at her reliable best, she's a smart and perceptive guide to culture clash. With only a handful of professional female standups in India, hers is a view of one in many, many millions, especially droll on how the nation that gave the world the Kama Sutra has somehow become so prudish about sex education (a legacy of British imperialism, naturally).

Caustically satirical when the mood takes her, drawing from an infamous 2014 poll that found that many Brits thought the Empire to be, on balance, a good thing, she likens our rapacious lust for territory to a child's computer game. Scathing of Slumdog Millionaire's poverty porn and aware of her own relative privilege, she presents a balanced assessment of the UK and India's attractions and horrors, which nevertheless allows for incredulity at Western food waste, inspiring a memorably pithy definition of a "second world country". Elsewhere, she's far more light-hearted, her itinerant lifestyle informing a surprisingly lengthy and detailed assessment of contrasting Indian and European toilet habits.

Occasionally, as when she expands on India's religions, Mittal is more interesting than funny, albeit while contextualising a complex subject. The link she makes between standup and prostitution is underdeveloped too but it doesn't undermine a very promising Edinburgh debut.