The most eye-catching feature of Nazeem Hussain’s comedy is its incontrovertible premise that racism is everywhere. No time is wasted justifying that flagrant truth; his jokes (like those of Aamer Rahman, his ex-partner in the double act Fear of a Brown Planet), take it for granted. I like that implicit provocation, as I like most of the Aussie act’s more outspoken material. Some of it animates this new set (not to be confused with Legally Brown, which he performed at last month’s Edinburgh festival). But there are weaker sections, in a show which – by Hussain’s admission – as often finds him rambling as cohering.
There’s minimal structure, far less a developing argument. The first half prominently features Hussain’s Sri Lankan immigrant mum; her overweening tales of hardship are a familiar trope of second-generation immigrant comedy. We get material, too, on Hussain buying property in a down-at-heel Melbourne suburb, which doesn’t amount to much.
It becomes a lot livelier when Hussain zeroes in on racial and religious sensitivities – such as the closing riff on seeking common cause with a racist on social media. There’s an enjoyably chippy bit about Buddhism’s good PR, and a faux-outraged protest against Santa Claus and the soft-soaping of Christianity. Better still is Hussain’s defence of his right to be religious, framed here as a takedown of atheism: Stalin tried to “imagine no religion”, he tells us, and it didn’t work out well. The argument holds little water, holy or otherwise – but it’s far and away the sparkiest section of the show.
• At Soho theatre, London, until 17 September. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
