‘I shouldn’t be allowed to do interviews’: Nish Kumar on controversy and clashes with comics | Nish Kumar

nIsh Kumar – a mop of curly hair, wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, a sumptuous cake in hand – sits centimeters from me in the conference room of his advertising offices in Soho, central London. However, there is another comedian who is turning heads. On the wall is a huge poster promoting Prime Video’s Last One Laughing UK – and looming above us from the center of the frame is the show’s host, Jimmy Carr.

This seems, let’s just say, a bit cynical. On Kumar’s latest show, he recalled the time he harshly confronted Carr about his decision to appear on influencer Jordan Peterson’s podcast. (“This is a radicalization event happening on an unprecedented scale,” he told Carr.) Then there’s the blurb for his upcoming tour, “Angry Humor from a Really Nice Guy,” in which Kumar expresses concern that comedy has been “co-opted by charlatans to serve tyrants” — a reference in part to the Riyadh Comedy Festival last fall, where Carr performed.

Once we move on to the final topic, there’s no choice but to point out the absurdity of the setup. “He’s here! He’s looking at us!” Kumar babbles. He’s initially reluctant to criticize his fellow comedians — “All I can think of now is one phrase: You shouldn’t be allowed to do interviews” — but soon, in his characteristically pointed, mile-a-minute manner, he’s calling out Carr, Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle and Jack Whitehall (“I mean, with all my love for him, I don’t think he knows anything about any of this stuff”) for playing a role in the “cultural washing of a culture.” Oppressive regime.” He found the participation of those who complained about cancel culture particularly egregious: in order to perform at the Saudi event, some comedians allegedly “signed a contract agreeing not to try to engage with Mohammed bin Salman.” [Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia]”I don’t want to hear about freedom of speech from any of these bastards again,” he says.

Kumar’s inability to hold the stump is perhaps his greatest asset. In school, he was an ardent debater, which clearly underscores his comedy, a collection of brilliant, logically tight lectures on everything from immigration to the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump. However, he deals with messy millennial candor as well, especially when it comes to his mental state (he’s been diagnosed with PTSD and ADHD). But more importantly, he’s an angry leftist at a time when such figures are becoming rare — so rare, in fact, that his presence is increasingly in demand across the pond. Last year, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman wondered whether Kumar could have the angry progressive attitude the United States so desperately needs, claiming that his material evokes “the spirit of the ferocious comedian Bill Hicks in a way I haven’t seen in many years.”

It’s April when we speak and Kumar has just returned from another trip to the US, where he premiered his new show and appeared on the US version of Have I Got News for You. Despite his success stateside, the Londoner’s comedy remains rooted in UK concerns – and he says the Anglophiles who attend his US gigs are interested enough in British politics to appreciate material about Angela Rayner and co. (Presumably, they keep up with developments by listening to Pod Save the UK, the weekly podcast about British politics that he co-hosts with journalist Koko Khan.) Kumar has always had a clear handle on his fanbase – he offers his long-standing description of his audience as “people who had a paid subscription to The Guardian or The New York Times or have recently canceled their paid subscriptions to The Guardian or The New York Times because those papers are not left-wing enough” – but he seems particularly happy with his extended generation. I called out, having recently noticed both 14-year-olds and septuagenarians in the crowd.

Kumar himself is now 40 years old. This year marks two decades since he started comedy, although his devotion to comedy goes back much further. When he was five years old, his uncle gave him a videotape of The Simpsons; At his home in south London, he pondered complex references and jokes. Chris Rock’s stand-up was another major influence (“He’s a short, squeaky-voiced colored man yelling about the news”) as was the turn-of-the-millennium sketch show Goodness Gracious Me. Until then, the only people he had seen doing comedy were “either white or African-American. When you see a group of Indians doing it, you think: Oh, this is viable for me.”

However, he spent his adolescence furthering his comedic ambitions with debating speeches (“they were stand-up sets, basically”) at a grammar school in the London suburb of Bromley, and in his first year at Durham University. Then fellow student Ed Gamble—with whom Kumar was performing a comedy skit—signed him up for a standup night. “After that, I wouldn’t do anything else.” He spent his twenties temporarily while struggling to get his career off the ground. “The only thing that helped me – because I certainly wasn’t making any money or having any success professionally – was the constant encouragement from my friends.” Now Kumar suspects his friends, including Gamble, James Acaster and Josh Widdecombe, were “lying” about his comedic prowess. “They certainly were. I think they liked having me around.”

You can see why they did it: Kumar is exceptionally good company on and off stage, passionate but never religious; Both are attractively self-confident and profitably self-effacing. By 2015, his perseverance was beginning to pay off: his fourth fringe show was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award and he began appearing regularly on television. But two years later, after landing a job on the satirical current affairs show The Mash Report, he became a household name – and a bogeyman for the right. Appearing on Question Time led to social media abuse; Piers Morgan, Andrew Neil and several Tory politicians have made a fuss over an “anti-British” episode of children’s program Awful History in which he appeared. Then, in 2021, some media outlets extensively reported on unfounded rumors that then-director-general Tim Davie had ordered the abolition of The Mash Report as part of an attempt to correct left-wing bias at the BBC (“Nish Mash Bosh”). Sun title).

Nowadays, Kumar rarely participates in such media storms. Is it comfortable not to be part of the culture wars or is it useful to participate in public debates? He didn’t hesitate: “It’s a relief. It didn’t benefit anyone; my presence in the conversation wasn’t helpful to any of the issues I was passionate about. I sometimes worry that it’s actually held them back.” In 2024, he made headlines again when he took part in a boycott of the Hay Literary Festival over patronizing Baillie Gifford’s ties to Israel: “I forgot how little I missed.”

Kumar does not need papers to address him; He’s hard enough on himself. The angry humor of a truly nice man makes him consider – not for the first time – the ethics of his job. One of the great things about comedy is its ability to make scary things less scary – but is that a good idea in an age where unimaginable atrocities are quickly becoming normal? Then there is the money. “Is it true that I benefit financially from the collapse of the West? I am like a disaster capitalist!”

In his stand, Kumar pokes fun at the fortunes his aforementioned friends have made from their hit podcasts, but he also frequently refers to the wealth he’s derived from his own comedy. He says his comfortable lifestyle did not distance him from the suffering of ordinary people. Instead, it gave him a greater appreciation for society’s failings: the only reason he entered middle age with a healthy bank balance was the “accident” of a successful career in the entertainment industry. “My financial situation is not evidence of a well-functioning economy – my life is some kind of useless miracle.”

Moreover, he does not live like a star: “No one I know has a level of wealth beyond the mechanics of everyday life – that’s the Jimmy Carr level of money.” In fact, Kumar’s insistence on speaking truth to power was the reason he refused to pay large salaries – including “the last one to laugh.” When his agent passed on the offer, she told him the money was “really good” and that Carr was the host. “I said to her: ‘Do you honestly think I could say yes to this given the content of what I’m saying on stage now?’” he says. “If I’m basically accusing him of being part of a mechanism that launders misogynistic fascist ideas into mainstream discourse, I can’t say, ‘Oh, Jimmy, isn’t Bob Mortimer good?!’

Integrity — like righteous anger — is in short supply in comedy right now, which makes Kumar’s indignant and heated arguments an even more valuable part of the scene. Not that he is willing to concede the point: he insists that he is a gag merchant and nothing more. “All I do is take stuff I’ve read by smarter people and put a joke at the end of it.” For once, I’m not convinced.

Nish Kumar Tours in the UK and Ireland, from September 9 to November 25.