One in three black men in the US will spend time in jail. So it’s safe to assume that – at any given moment – there’s major untapped talent stuck behind those bars. Step forward Ali Siddiq, who spent six years in a Texas prison for selling drugs, and is now a hot-property comic.
For 15 years, Siddiq didn’t address prison in his act. Then, last year, the 45-year-old performed It’s Bigger Than These Bars to inmates at Bell County Jail, Texas, broadcast as his first hour-long special for Comedy Central. Tonight’s show draws on that material, and proves Siddiq to be an accomplished, authoritative standup.
As often with visiting Americans, this is less a show than some routines tenuously strung together. But it serves as an effective introduction to Siddiq, ranging across his misspent youth, his jail time, and present-day life as a dad and (a highlight, this) an ageing basketball player. He begins with a guide to being “hood” – how to achieve it, or how to avoid it. He’s his own case study, as his mum pimps him into punch-ups with bullies, and his dad forces him to go to school with – horror of horrors – supermarket trainers on.
He takes pains not to glamorise this poor, sharp-elbowed upbringing or his later criminality. But he can’t help but do so – if only because he’s emerged from both so enviably cool and confident. Pop-eyed and always amused, he southern-drawls his problems with the Black Panther movie and stories of his “serial killer” five-year-old son as if it’s a pleasure, not just a job, to do so. He’s still talking long after his hour is up – Soho theatre’s staff practically have to bundle him from the stage.
You might jib at the brief material about, say, gay men and glitter – not because it’s homophobic, which is debatable, but because Siddiq congratulates himself on how supposedly unsayable it is. It’s a very straight, male show, which stands or falls on its hard-won authenticity, on Siddiq never trying to be anyone but himself. And when you are this charismatic, why would you?
• At Soho theatre, London, until 3 November.
