Review by Aziz Ansari – a brilliant comedian who makes it look easy | Funny

Yyou can’t say that Aziz Ansari doesn’t know his audience. He starts Saturday night’s game promising to finish well the beginning of England. And the finale is punctuated by the performance of Wonderwall’s chosen nation’s anthem in the crowd that sits atop the stage. In the middle, we find the story of a small hour of where Ansari’s life is: three years in a traditional marriage, living in London (which may explain how he feels about the important things of the community), and trying, until now, to start a family. In the hands of a very talented artist who makes the comic look easy, it all comes across – delightfully, if a little lightly.

On that side, it’s back pre-scandal AzizThe iconic Parks and Recreation star who broke into the comedy big league with whip-lash commentary so smooth it didn’t hit the mark. There is little sign here of very difficult, after-work Ansariwhose career was not so hot after being accused of adultery. (He said he apologized to the woman after hearing about her discomfortafter believing that the meeting was consensual.) Here, wearing a suit so shiny Ben Elton could be ashamed, he burns the sarcastic streaks that often pass through his life, and in our time, without carving a very deep trench.

Some of his best pieces are early ones, where he mocks the pride of his culture (“I’m an Indian with no zero”) and compares his marriages to JD Vance’s interracial ones. After that, there is a useful tease as Ansari imagines the type of child he will one day have, and the nature of the parents that will take his name.

There’s a devilish quality to these things that’s missing in the first half of the show, which is deflected around but not quickly via YouTube likes and a bad dog story about a celebrity party gone wrong. One habit is closely related to the other Bill Hicks‘s famous riff on English “hooligans”, as Ansari mocks the unthreatening nature of security announcements on the London tube.

In the second half hour, Ansari talks about his birth journey with his wife. At a time when comedy is no longer afraid of emotional impact, it keeps the story clear, with concerns about the lower tax rate on men than women, and the accepted myths about porn that are given to the male clinic. Perkiness is its responsibility – it is a comedy, after all – but it comes across as a little too much. That feeling is heightened by his habit of closing the cake-and-eat, in which he pronounces words and then lowers the words of love between him and his wife.

But if this isn’t Ansari’s deep cut, there’s a payback of sorts: the amount of ad absurdum in which he seeks culturally sensitive advice from a chatbot is obvious.

By 9.30pm, these would not be shows worth missing in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. But as a munchable hors d’oeuvre, you can’t go wrong with it.