Ayesha Hazarika: Tales from the Pink Bus

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Prior to her eight-year stint in the upper echelons of the Labour party working as Harriet Harman's chief of staff and special adviser to Ed Miliband, Ayesha Hazarika cut her teeth on the comedy circuit. She attended the same coaching course as Greg Davies and Rhod Gilbert, but while those two went on to make names for themselves through panel show and sitcom appearances, Hazarika became a fixture in the bizarre, unstable world of mainstream politics.

Her return to standup is wholly focused on her professional experience of the 2015 general election. Throughout this period, Labour was haunted by calamity, making headlines with a series of gaffes that would have been laughable had the stakes not been so high.

Hazrika was uniquely positioned to observe these goings on unfiltered by media spin. It's unfortunate that what she's chosen to present to us in Tales from the Pink Bus is a checklist of events we're likely to remember, and a series of anecdotes that play to established public perception of her colleagues. Rather than criticise the media for its immature and unethical bullying of Ed Miliband, the comic uses this opportunity to belatedly stick the boot in. If you didn't already know, he can be a bit awkward and clumsy.

She ends her set by rightly condemning the monopoly affluent white men have on power and calling for more women and minorities to be represented in politics. Unfortunately, this reasonable point loses currency when tacked on to an hour's worth of shallow tabloid-style pandering.