Nish Kumar: Ruminations On The Nature Of Subjectivity

It's the mark of a sophisticated comic that, rather than ranting, Nish Kumar has challenged himself to make nuanced opinion funny. With verve, precision and squawking incredulity, he exposes the arrogance behind every pontificating bore.

His dad’s dismissal of rap as “easy”, a young Tory’s blind loyalty to the free market, a friend’s assertion that 12 Years A Slave has nothing to teach him – each crumbles under the glare of ridicule and reason.

To Kumar, nobody's infallible – least of all him. He's often guilty of hypocrisy and self-delusion, and in admitting this, he reconciles the authority implied by his presence on stage with the theme of questioning one's views. With his girlfriend's help, he's realised he’s a pessimist, an egotist and a reformed teenage “bellend” who still lapses into self-regard.

One area where he does trust his judgment is his comedy, particularly concerning race. In one ear, industry bods implore him to stop calling attention to his ethnicity. In the other, a right-on audience member berates him for not ramming multiculturalism down the White Man’s throat.

But Kumar stands steadfast in the middle. He’d rather treat attitudes to race with the open-mindedness they deserve. So a trip to the aptly-named Isle of Wight reveals he’s overly quick to anticipate prejudice, while his frustration with the prescribed role of non-white comics inspires a daft parody of “correct race comedy”.

Kumar closes on a timely point that online troll culture has endangered reasoned expression. For him, long-form standup is its last refuge, and his new hour's a case in point. It's witty, mature, with a system of checks and balances that, rather than neutering the points he makes, only makes them more credible.