Comedians don’t come much smoother than Aziz Ansari. Despite a niggly delay before he came on and a little glitch when he wanted the house lights up there was nothing that could put him off his stride. There was a niceness to him too. Louis CK is probably funnier, but more sour. Ansari is much more sweetly comical, which makes him feel all the more refreshing.
It’s tempting to say that the Parks & Recreation star was this good because Americans tightly script their shows and tour them to death, but there was actually a genial looseness to this gig. Ansari skilfully bantered with the front row, showing that he was just as good off-script, and in an interesting interactive digression towards the end he scrolled through a female fan’s texts, getting maximum spontaneous entertainment value out of his lack of knowledge of M People’s Heather Small.
I’ve seen Ansari on his last two visits to the UK and what was different – and best – about this show, was that it was noticeably more political. His routine about the horror of factory farming had more than a hint of Bridget Christie about it in the way he neatly weaved together ridiculous pop culture references and a genuinely hard-hitting message. It helps if you are familiar with the work of Ja Rule, but you don't need to be to see what Ansari is driving at and enjoy it.
Even when he was less than original his riffs were sold with style and panache, such as when he talked about trolling. He might get critics saying “you suck” on Twitter, but, he pointed out, he never gets offensive sexual messages from female fans – “finger me, Aziz” – like the ones female performers get from men. Another routine about creepy dudes being everywhere simply flipped the logic for laughs - women never harrass men the way men harrass women, but what might it be like if they did? Again there was a serious subtext to this, underlined when he asked for a show of hands from women who had been flashed or hassled by men.
But this show was not remotely preachy. The emphasis was always on gags. In another smartly observed section he reflected on the nature of modern life where we always fear we are missing out on something better so keep our arrangements lose and think nothing of cancelling at the last minute. Ansari is just about old enough to recall a time when people arranged to meet at a specific time and – you know what? – they stuck to it. Funnily Micky Flanagan has done a similar routine about how people managed before mobiles, but I think Ansari might just edge it. But then most of this show suggested that he has the edge on a lot of UK comedians.
