Egyptian-American standup Ahmed Ahmed is best known in the UK as the 2004 recipient of the inaugural Richard Pryor award for ethnic minority comedians on the Edinburgh Fringe. Inaugural, and only: it was scrapped after one year. He’s unlikely, alas, to win any prizes for this London outing – at least for this final preview, which by his own admission was a struggle. Whether a fuller house would generate more heat around Ahmed’s underpowered routines on race, middle-aged dating and his funny dad is wide open to question.
His opening salvos don’t inspire confidence. Being a Muslim, he explains: “I don’t eat pork. But I fucked a few pigs.” Judging by his later material on the opposite sex – which flaunts old-school assumptions about who pays the bill, and riffs on how “awesome” it was dating a 21-year-old (Ahmed is 44) – that pigs gag is as charmless as it sounds.
There are livelier moments. He gets mileage from his theory that the Biblical burning bush is marijuana – even if his gleeful depiction of pot smoking, like his material on “cougars” (older women) and Game of Thrones feels a bit adolescent. Material on being an Arab at airport security treads familiar ground, but is animated with a bracing cynicism borne (I imagine) of infuriating experience.
Having organised Middle East comedy tours (which he mentions), Ahmed presumably has some fascinating tales to tell. But he’s not telling them tonight. In their place, there’s a sub-Carry On routine about a prostate exam by a gay doctor, which we’re invited to see as a hilarious affront to Ahmed’s straight male dignity. Elsewhere, it’s passable club-comedy fare. Someone should have warned Ahmed that standards are higher at Soho theatre – and that he ought to have prepared more than 40 minutes of material, too.
• Until 1 November. Box office: 020-7478 0100. Venue: Soho theatre, London
