I had heard of Ms. Mittal before - she has a Netflix special which I've not watched yet - but hadn't heard much of her stand-up. Being a female Indian comic I was looking forward to what she might bring and any perspectives she might share.
It was quite a small venue with a smallish audience so the atmosphere wasn't great. Ms. M proved herself a very pleasant host happily chatting about how thrilled she was to be at the Fringe - her first. She then told a brief anecdote about how incredibly lucky and statistically unlikely it is for her to be standing in front of us - out of a population of 1.3Bn, there are about 1000 comedians of whom 200 perform their comedy in English; 12 of those 200 are women. So you can't quite count the number of English-speaking Indian female comics on your fingers - need to press-gang a toe or two into the tally - but there aren't many.
Her comedy was generally quite genial and good-natured. She cheerfully satirised a number of Indian customs and traditions - from the panic of her Mother as Ms. M is in her thirties, single and childless (a big no-no in a traditional conservative country such as India) to the number of religions and Gods which means about 1 in 3 days is some kind of holiday. She railed against the Western method of going to the toilet - being initially shocked at the concept of toilet paper instead of washing - and how she had been utterly confused in Italy at the very concept of a bidet (apparently her hosts had been waiting for her to ask them about it - Ms. M had just used it to wash her clothes). She lamented that of all the stereotypes one could have picked to satirise Indians why did it have to be Apu from The Simpsons. She touched, but didn't dwell too much, on the British influence in India, how it still informs much of Indian life and emphasising that India had a much longer and richer history than just Empire.
Overall I found her interesting and funny, but not terribly engaging. She was humorous, amusing and had a decent presence - just, for me, didn't really engage in the way others have this Fringe. Will still check out her Netflix special though.
Filing out I had two more shows to go to. I even walked up to the next venue and had a pint next door in the Hard Rock Cafe. But my feet and knee were in agony, the two shows so far had been a tad indifferent and I just couldn't be bothered so went back to the flat. Definite case of hitting the half-way wall. Hopefully the next day would be better.
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