In India, I’m edgy, says Urooj Ashfaq; in Edinburgh, not so much. It’s a joke about leaving a small but burgeoning Mumbai standup scene to visit – for the first time – the most sophisticated live comedy environment in the world. And yet, this weekend the 28-year-old was named best newcomer at the Edinburgh comedy awards, a remarkable feat for this fish ostensibly out of water, and a surprising one, given the engaging but unexceptional nature of her show.
I contrived to see Oh No! twice at the fringe, and left in no doubt of Ashfaq’s considerable live performance skills. She has an expressive face and voice, securing several laughs by sudden vocal modulation alone. Her persona and onstage manner are endearingly at odds. The star of her autobiographical stories is a high-maintenance therapy addict still nursing the wounds of her parents’ divorce. But on stage, she’s got warmth, emotional openness and self-irony to spare, and grace and authority too with a crowd who keep arriving until halfway through her show.
That show is perfectly enjoyable if, by Ashfaq’s admission, mild fare by fringe standards. It traces her therapy journey, as she negotiates with strangers the after-effects of her parents’ breakup, her constant crying (“babies complain about me on a flight…”) , and her distrust of men. There’s a neat gag about Ashfaq and her parents’ tit-for-tat use of the saying “inshallah”, a choice routine about seeing counsellors on her friends’ behalf, and a few notable cracks (here’s where edgy comes in) about Hindu-Muslim relations.
Occasionally, the jokes are less ticklish than their premise: the one about converting bad news to good before sharing it with her mum, say. A few other gags – see sending her infant niece to therapy – just shouldn’t have made the cut. More often, Ashfaq’s routines are amusing if familiar. When she reads passages from her tween diaries, the joke is on the changeability of our intense pre-teen passions, and it’s a fun one – if no more so than when other comics have done something similar. Shock of the new is in short supply, then, but this best newcomer is one to keep an eye on.
• At Assembly George Square, Edinburgh, until 27 August. At Soho theatre, London, 30 October-4 November.
• All our Edinburgh festival reviews
