Fear of a Brown Planet is described in its press release as a show that addresses issues such as racism, prejudice and the War on Terror. Whilst this is, broadly speaking, true, much of the show lacked the incisive and unique perspective I had been hoping for from these three young Muslim performers.
The show is formatted into three blocks of stand up, with audio visual sequences inserted in between. The AV aspects involved footage from news/current affairs/popular film spliced together to highlight and ridicule the bigotry endemic in this country. However well intentioned, these sequences are overlong and a bit on the ‘easy’ side. Taking pot shots, and not particularly incisive ones at that, at Naomi Robson is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, and about as mentally challenging.
Nazeem Hussain took to the stage first, immediately creating the feel of a regular night of stand up one might find in a comedy room on any night of the week. Although popular with the crowd much of Nazeem’s material trod over the same old ground with nothing much new to add, with John Howard impersonations and jokes about telemarketers being amongst the biggest crowd pleasers. Likewise, Mohammed El-Leissy, who followed Nazeem, made me feel like I’d heard all this before. Once again he was received well by the packed audience, but much of his material was dragged down by long set ups with little pay off. Of the three performers however, the last on, Aamer Rahman, was easily the stand out. With a natural charm and an incisive and original wit, this young comedian had me both laughing and feeling like I was finally hearing something fresh and original. Aamer is definitely a name to watch into the future.
It is important, and refreshing, to have these voices being heard from the Muslim community. We have enough white, swotty, private school educated, middle class, lefty do gooders like myself, postulating on the state of the world, whilst communities such as the Muslim and Indigenous communities in this country tend to be spoken of rather the doing the speaking out.
It should also be reiterated that this show was certainly a crowd pleaser. Overall though, I would have liked to have seen more of these performers shooting sacred cows rather than taking pot shots at easy targets.
For further details and booking information, see “the festival website”:http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/season/2007/show/283/