There are few acts in Edinburgh right now quite like Nabil Abdulrashid – perhaps because he avoided the fringe (partly by choice, partly financial exigency) until deep into his career. The Britain’s Got Talent finalist has not had his instincts moulded over years of engagement with a festival that is, generally speaking, white, middle-class and liberal. Does that sound like I’m making excuses for a comic with more rough edges than a sanding block? Well, I find the 37-year-old such an interesting standup: now thoughtful, now misanthropic; aggressive but tender; and always marked by a bloody-minded refusal to play to anyone’s rules but his own.
There’s no point pretending The Purple Pill is a structured and coherent hour; it isn’t. And there’s plenty in it that I find off-putting. Abdulrashid ranting at opportunistic comics with newly diagnosed ADHD, or sneering at reviewers who’ve criticised his work? That all lands a bit self-righteously for me. When he blames the audience for laughing at his corporal punishment jokes – well, that’s a rich cake to have and eat at once.
But Abdulrashid makes no claim that any of this is streamlined or consistent. That’s partly his point. He knows he’s flawed; his whole adult life, he’s been told that the principles he was raised with, in patriarchal Nigeria, are wrong. And to me, the show comes across as an honest, in-progress reckoning with that, as Abdulrashid defends his inheritance, but also makes fun of those moments when it pitches him into ethical confusion. So we find the Croydon man celebrating his daughter’s violent dispatch of her playground bullies – but tying himself in knots when responding to being racially abused by a Chinese man.
There may be lots of grit in the machine, but it’s a machine working to represent the complexity and contradiction of life beyond our echo chambers. And there are great apercus and jokes (“I like white culture; I’m a big fan of Lenny Henry”), from Abdulrashid’s perspective as a man at the intersection of several different cultures. It’s a bumpy ride – but it takes you somewhere worth visiting.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August
