All standups operating in the space between medicine and comedy now do so in the shadow of Adam Kay’s all-conquering This Is Going to Hurt. That show/book/TV hit surely took the comedy (and tragedy) of junior doctoring – the mishaps, the carnal black comedy, the mental health fallout – as far as they could go. In No Scrubs, Michael Akadiri keeps things milder. Also a junior doctor, now on sabbatical to tend to his comedy career, Akadiri brings breezy tales of his dual life – breezy, at least, until he ends up in court after an unexpected death.
This climax, in which our host makes trenchant points about how black people are viewed when in and out of their scrubs, arrives out of the blue. Were foundations laid earlier in the show, No Scrubs might feel like a more robust construction. But Akadiri keeps it loose and has the easy charm to pull that off, as he regales us with tales of the “ash cash” medics earn for facilitating cremations, of milking the public’s NHS worship during the Covid pandemic and of his wife vetoing a career in gynaecology.
That last routine is not the only instance here of blokeish humour, as Akadiri overreacts to his partner’s invasive foreplay, or later, heralds the potency of his Anglo-Nigerian sperm. As the show proceeds, the jokes veer further from the hospital ward and can’t help feeling arbitrary, as the Londoner cracks wise about the quality of Aldi doughnuts and, a little unconvincingly, about coercing children to accompany him to trampoline parks.
None of which sets us up for the later stages of No Scrubs, which finds Akadiri’s nascent career on the line after the unforeseen death of a patient. One might wish it were better threaded throughout the show, but this argument about society’s two-faced treatment of black medics hits home – and stays upbeat too, with an eye-catching proposal for how the issue might be addressed. It’s not the most tightly constructed standup show, but there’s no faulting its bedside manner.
