Review by Steve Bennett

New Yorker Nikhil Tilwalli has an almost forensic obsession with puns, enjoying figuring out how to make them work and pondering on what the ambiguities of language that create them say about our ability to communicate.

The result is a handful of strong examples of witty wordplay, but also a lot of dry analysis about the philosophies of jokes, which makes his Edinburgh debut seem more lecture than stand-up.

That feeling is exacerbated by his detached performance style, bricking himself up behind a fourth wall as he trots through what’s clearly a heavily scripted show. It’s also a script that could do with editing.

Some convoluted set-ups aren’t justified by the payoff, such as ambling comparison of the book Confessions by St Augustine to the album Confessions by Usher that really isn’t worth the journey. Puns are more powerful the less extraneous information that’s required.

Occasionally the joke is precisely that the wordplay is so torturous – a case in point is his suggested Gandhi action movie, which is nicely done – but as a device, it needs to be deployed sparingly.

There is also some waffly background information about himself, which seems at attempt to address that problem of seeming impersonal; stories such as the way he disappointed his Indian parents in not becoming a doctor, or the explanation as to why he found himself wandering the streets of New York in the titular panda outfit. But such sections tend to be dispassionately related, and the humour not cleanly drawn out. Storytelling is not Tilwalli’s strong point.

For someone who seems so analytical about jokes, he doesn’t always follow best practice in writing them. But there are maybe a dozen very strong lines here, and I bet he’s got a cracking set over ten minutes. However an hour is a challenge too far.

Review date: 8 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett