Having been nominated last year his show 'Control' and
receiving excellent reviews I thought this year would be one to check out Ahir
Shah. A chance early afternoon from work meant I could get to the venue midweek
25 minutes before his show started. Being a free show, it's first come first
serve, and it turns out I only just got in, so popular is this young
whippersnapper.
He's playing the biggest room at Cabaret Voltaire, which
probably seats around 150-200, and before the first week is even over he's
getting the crowds - it's impressive stuff.
Once the audience seated, the entrance music is still
playing; it's pretty heavy, upbeat electronic dance stuff, and Shah is
oblivious to the crowd and chatter as he's feverishly dancing in a side aisle,
psyching himself for the show, then finally he announces himself in to stage.
Immediately he's a powerful presence with a confidence voice
(a clipped, slightly posh London accent) and urgent arm gestures, constantly
pressing important comic and political points.
At the start he deals with the paradox of his voice versus
his looks (he lives in South London, but originally, ORIGINALLY... he's from
North London... It's a salient point about ethnicity and identity I've always
dreamt of making humourously and intelligently, but dammit he's beaten me to
it) and swiftly and skilfully he takes on a journey through his life and his
relationship with his family and growing up, with hints of his mental illness
(he's always been 'a bit emosh' but in his early twenties he was diagnosed as
'totes emosh').
It's testament to his skills that he's able to drop in quite
serious moments in his life, causing just the right amount of tension and
giving sweet comic relief soon after. The focus of the show is his grandmother,
who used to call him a ‘duffer’ who was deported when Shah was 5 and whom he
sees again in his mid-twenties when he visits Gujarat but by then dementia ha
say in and she can no longer remember him. Back and forth, Shah takes us from
joyous, comedic highs to moments of poignancy to fervent political swipes and
points of truth about the world's slow destruction at the hands of Man,
throughout which he makes a lovely occasional callback to Queen’s Bohemian
Rhapsody, which his father erroneously believed Shah had written after finding
the lyrics handwritten on his son’s desk, so out of touch is he with Western culture.
What is most striking about Shah is his energy and eloquence
- you can't help but let yourself be caught up in the energy he builds and
builds, and his writing is almost lyrical (he's rivaling Alfie Brown and
on-form Nish Kumar), but the occasional act-out helps to vary the pace of the
show so we're not completely exhausted.
Ahir Shah has shown himself to be an exceptional comedian,
he's engaging and enthralling, and this show was damn near perfect. I'll be
stunned if he doesn't bag himself another nomination this year.
Score: 9/10
Venue: Cabaret Voltaire
Dates: 11th-26th August
Time: 14:15
Price: Free non-ticketed
Additional shows on Saturdays and Sundays including 11th
August at 5.20pm at Underbelly on Cowgate, £12
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