“A warm, bubbly Urooj lends us cleverly built gags in exploring the realities of an edgy female Indian comedian.”
Urooj Ashfaq’s How to Be a Baddie was funny, conversational and cosy. Both the set up, Urooj’s confidence and storytelling invited us into the world of being a female Indian comedian, as she strives to counter an unnamed reviewers suggestion that she wasn’t quite as edgy as she may be deemed in India.
Through three key anecdotes: Astrology, Erotica and Hemorrhoids, Urooj constructs a rather personal exploration of her inner and outer experiences. She opens in warming us to her travels from India, drawing on key differences in patriarchal and cultural elements, which were seen to in fact overlap, and create a homogeneous and safe environment for her audience. Her worldbuilding was hilarious at times, specifically flowing excellently as she moved from reading erotica, to fantasying and writing a Wattpad entry in which she is sold to One Direction. Her diversity in accents, namely Harry Styles British voice to an Arabic take on Zayn Malik, were very remarkable.
I also commend her unwillingness to make all her gags palatable for a Western audience, where some lines were in Hindi and the translations were seen (and pointed out) to not quite land. Where Urooj established this warming environment, the successful anticipation of the jokes seemed to land better than the climax. At times, the audience were seen to be left a little lost, but as Urooj says, she just likes talking, so perhaps a structurelessness is what suits her best, and her confidence in facing an audience is all she needs.
Urooj certainly knows how to read a room, and her discussions of topics saw to reach every audience member. In particular, her conversations on taboos, namely porn, was met with silence when the audience were asked if they ever find themselves engaging in rather dark pornography. Urooj cleverly utilized these reactions by pointing fun at us -acknowledging the thoughts of a silent room without the physical affirmation of us nodding along- and now this made us laugh.
I would have liked to seen Urooj push to round her three sections to a tight close, and there were moments in which Urooj admits she has missed her cue, or blurted out a line which hadn’t been set up. Though the premise and delivery of the show as an entirety felt a little disjointed, her bubbly, confident presence made for an evening of warm laughter in Soho’s downstairs suite and offered a window into the realities of being a female Indian comedian.
Urooj Ashfaq: How to be a Baddie performs at Soho Theatre until 15th November. Tickets are available here.