Nish Kumar is a Comedian

Nish Kumar is a meme. To the uninitiated, a meme is an idea that reproduces itself naturally through a culture, passing from person to person.

The Fringe depends on memes. We usually call it word of mouth. Shows can soar or flop depending on the ideas spread about them. Heck, you’re reading a meme right now.

Kumar has become a different kind of meme, the kind usually associated with pictures of kittens or Ryan Gosling. His picture advertising last year’s show—hand on chin looking thoughtful—has been reproduced many times online with different straplines, under the heading 'Confused Muslim'.

Kumar is not Muslim. His family hails from Kerala, in India, and he was born in Britain. And so begins his quest to understand why this meme put his self-described “ethnically ambiguous” nose out joint.

What follows is an affable ramble through what it means to be Indian-British, at a pitch similar to how US comedian Aziz Ansari plays with white America’s lazy stereotyping of his Indian Tamil heritage.

Curiously, though, Kumar scores biggest when he steps away from his specific quest, such as exploring the effect online ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ buttons are having on teenager’s critical faculties or imagining what single people did in clubs before they had smartphones to use as a social proxy.

More material like that and Kumar’s show could become a different kind of meme at this year’s Fringe. Currently, however, it is akin to pictures of sunsets posted on Facebook – something shared between people looking for something bright, likeable, and comfortingly routine.