Nish Kumar: Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe review – navel-gazing with political punch | Comedy

WWhat’s the point of making comedy that reminds everyone how awful things are? For the first time in Nish Kumar’s work, there’s a note of uncertainty in his new show about the value of the ex-Mash Report man’s project. For better or worse, he’s the preeminent comedy polemicist of our time, the joker the left turns to and others curse, for his righteous tirades against racism, neoliberalism and the Tories. But what drove Nish to this, where has it gotten him – and what’s the point?

None of these questions are at issue in Nish’s first part, Don’t Kill My Vibe, which begins – as his previous show did – with a rollicking political tirade (“like a podcast on double speed”) that elicits cheers for its intensity as much as its humour. Here, Sunak, Patel and Braverman are taken down by a British Asian man furious that they have to represent him, a long-worn joke about Liz Truss murdering the Queen is made, and alternative outcomes are tentatively considered (“I’ll not Be Persistent D’d!”) to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

There’s political commentary after the interval, too – about Gaza, about the messianic delusions of the billionaire class. But Kumar’s own mental health (first broached in 2022’s Your Power, Your Control) increasingly takes centre stage. He undergoes therapy for anxiety, suffers from fits of rage (a funny one aimed at Boris Johnson’s motorcade) and, on the cusp of 40, experiences insinuations of mortality. He admits – and condemns – his own tendency towards arrogance, there are self-absorbed routines about rows with Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais, and his supposed constitutional inability to write mundane comedies about the contents of his fridge.

Does Nish’s new navel-gazing work? It works, on balance, by deepening the politics with a picture of a fearful man, clinging to political conviction, and his audience, to suppress the irritated voices in his head. We get more for our money: intelligent black-comedy polemics, plus borderline-nervous-breakdown hysterical remarks from the least Zen man alive. State of the Nation comedy as ever, then – but also State of the Nish.