Review: Nish Kumar & others, Bristol Comedy Garden – ‘Just the tonic needed’

I didn’t expect to come away from Bristol Comedy Garden with strains of the national anthem tune stuck in my head. There may well be audience members across the city cursing Nish Kumar for that one.

The comedian, famed for TV hit Late Night Mash (formerly The Mash Report) among other things, burst onto the stage with a presence that makes his TV persona look positively placid.

The guy in the long queue for coffee concerned about missing Nish’s set just before it started needn’t have worried, the no-holds-barred, politically-charged opening was probably heard well across the Downs and beyond.

Dressed in an Out Kast t-shirt, the comedian flew through a gig that went down a storm with a Bristol audience before his mic was cut off just as he delivered the final two lines – either by someone deeply offended by his mockery of the national anthem or a real stickler for curfews.

There were pre-pandemic festival vibes in Bristol Comedy Garden

But let’s rewind back to the beginning where Bristol Comedy Garden opened amid idyllic summer evening scenes up on the Downs. Inside the ‘garden’ there was sunshine, street food stalls, comedy, queues and – as compere John Robins put it – cans in the park. It felt like a shift back to pre-pandemic festival vibes.

There was a local presence among the various food vendors, with Tasty Ragga and Gopal’s Curry Shack among them, along with ample drinks options, from beer cans for £5.50 a pop to whiskey cocktails for £8.50 each and wine available from wandering vendors.

Against all odds considering the long queues, the gig started close to the allocated start time of 7.30pm with a killer set by Suzi Ruffell.

It’s a curious thing watching comedians that you’ve previously only seen on TV. Without the confines of the small screen, you see a whole other side to them.

Suzi’s smear test sketch stole the show for me

Suzi stormed through a dazzlingly funny set that took us through online harassment (in the form of being sent 14 dick pics on Facebook) to marriage and having a baby with her wife. Her sketch about going for a smear test (intricately acted out with the use of the long mic stand) was, for me, the standout moment of the night. It might have helped to have experienced smear tests to fully appreciate the comedic mastery but the whole account was so beautifully executed, it made me gag on my Gopal’s curry while rocking with silent laughter.

Tadiwa’s set flew by in a steady stream of laughs

Tadiwa Mahlunge continued the strong lineup with a quick-witted observational set that flew by in a steady stream of laughs and covered his childhood in Cardiff (as “the only black kid in Wales”) and his academic excellence (helped by his mum’s no-nonsense attitude to revising).

Aisling Bea was perhaps the least polished performance but was still endearingly entertaining and naturally funny with a few killer lines recounting moments of her Irish Catholic childhood and ending with a rendition of Ronan Keating’s Life is a Rollercoaster.

Aisling’s set covered Birkenstocks, religion and Ronan Keating, among other things

John manages to make the mundane very funny

The whole gig was brilliantly compered by Thornbury local John Robins who, as always, excelled at engaging with the crowd and making the mundane funny.

Nish commented that he was safe with a Bristol audience to go full throttle on government failures – comedically taking down the prime minister, Matt Hancock, Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak, before later moving on to Ricky Gervais and Jimmy Carr. He touched on racism and nationalism, among other things, and ended with a mockery of national anthems (not just the British anthem mind, the whole concept of them in general).

“There’s a guy in the front row wearing a backwards baseball cap and an Idles t-shirt who looks like he’s gone to a party dressed as Bristol,” commented the comedian early on.

Nish’s stage performance made his TV persona look positively placid

Nish spoke about how he grapples with doing comedy for a living considering the state of the world right now, likening it to “fiddling while Rome burns”.

But as he pointed out, we all need some light relief from the reality of things. Comedy might not change the world (although that point is probably arguable) but it is just the tonic needed to help face it right now.

Overall, it was a stellar opening night for this year’s Bristol Comedy Garden. Just be warned, the Downs get cold once the sun goes down even on a beautiful day so don’t forget to bring some layers.

Bristol Comedy Garden is on at the Downs until Sunday.

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All photos: Stephen Sumner

Read more: The Downs get set to host Bristol Comedy Garden 2022

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