It did not take long for Sunil Patel to win me over. His mirthful observations are simply all too relatable, for the better and the worse. A sardonic mood prevails, where Patel’s swaggering pretentious charm delivers with unnerving ease a slew of neurotic, dry witticisms that permeate down to the core. It goes carefully as it’s own pace, but still leaves room for itself to evolve as a show. Despite overusing Jay Z jokes,
A firm crowd pleaser with a promising future in comedy
It helps that he has an instantly attractive demeanour: charming, sharp, mildly arrogant yet self-deprecating, he’s altogether engaging. It earns him the applause he rightfully deserves, and served to complement the better part of his routine. Professing himself to be the “whitest man his friends know”, much of Patel’s humour derives from the staleness of adulthood where he aptly points out life’s many foibles without coming across as a whiner. It serves as a warning of the dangers of dead end jobs (think shelf-stackers and call centres), where an interesting proposition is offered to us by the comic: Is it worth pursuing our passions once we’ve dropped the grind stone, or will we still suffer in aftershock? Chances are, yes you probably will. But that’s okay. We’ll all have to deal with a quarter-life crisis.
The venue was not suitable to his needs, being cramped to the point of uncomfortable, but Patel adapted this into his act well enough that eventually two strangers ended up playing a makeshift game of badminton in an attic. A firm crowd pleaser with a promising future in comedy, Sunil Patel’s Fringe show is a triumph on a steep trajectory towards critical acclaim.
