by ⭐⭐⭐½
This is a four-star show in the making. Just not the day I saw it.
Let me explain? On my main Edinburgh review page, I’ve aggregated all of my reviews, and also explained my own particular star system, in which 3.5 is reserved for good shows that you can imagine revisiting later and seeing it in a greater light. To illustrate, there’s a video making the rounds this summer contrasting a Chappell Roan concert in 2021 outdoors to a handful of people with 100,000 people doing the H-O-T-T-O-G-O dance along with Chappell Roan at this summer’s music festivals. Now, I’m not mentioning this here to suggest that Kiran Saggu is the next Chappell Roan of comedy. But I am saying that Saggu has a charismatic presence and a wit that should be enjoyed by a much larger audience than the handful that accompanied me to her show on the first Monday of Fringe. So it’s nice to see her selling out shows come the weekend.
But what about her show? Slacks is a solid introductory hour to Saggu tracing her own aspirational story and that of her family, migrating from India to London to Indiana and back again, which brings added relevance and tension to her performance thanks (but no thanks) to the recent far-right white attacks by Brits on immigrants of color. Not that this is one of those too-serious Fringe shows. She’s a proper stand-up, joking about her plight as a funny woman in her 20s who quit her day job just before the pandemic, and somehow went viral thanks to The Daily Mail not getting her sense of humour. Saggu can cut herself some slack (and some slacks), but she shouldn’t have to accommodate the shenanigans of the tabloid media. And definitely not the mediocre men who date her and upon learning of her comedy career, immediately proclaim: I can do that. No. No, they cannot.
I look forward to checking in on Saggu in a year or two to see how far she’s come. That is, if she can come around to the idea of putting in hard work.
Kiran Saggu “Slacks” plays at Underbelly Bristo Square during the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe.
