by Jamie D’Souza

In 2022, I wrote an article on the little incidents I’ve experienced on the circuit around race. Things like the time someone told me I shouldn’t do ‘p*ki’ material just before I went on and did my first five-minute set at a big club in London.

I’m really happy to say in the three years since I wrote that article, racism has been completely solved by the powers-that-be and we’re all living in perfect harmony, and as a result my career has totally plummeted.

Needless to say, these problems do still exist. A few months ago I did a gig in the middle of nowhere where the crowd were all white, and I was the only brown person on the bill. 

This is often the case, and generally not an issue, and I don’t think this is the end of the world. I grew up in a very white area. My school photo looks like a mid-Noughties Mock The Week line-up.

I was opening, it was a bit of a tough gig, but I did just about fine, and was feeling pretty good about it until the MC announced the dreaded joke competition.

The 18 audience members submitted seven little jokes on bits of tatty paper and handed them to the compere, who took them in and gave them all a skim read.

‘No racist ones this time’ he exclaimed.

He then went on stage and the first joke he read out after the interval was: ‘What happens when a p*ki with an erection walks into a wall? He breaks his nose.’

Undeniably, a structurally sound joke. Contextually, racist in my opinion. Crucially, a tough one, because if I didn’t laugh along it would have looked like I had a micropenis, which is an entirely separate rumour going round on the circuit that I’m keen to quash.

The rest of the jokes covered a myriad of topics including fatness, mothers-in-law and the fatness of their mothers-in-law.

In a landslide victory from the audience vote, the p*ki with an erection won best joke, and the author of the gag won two free tickets to the night next month.

It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’s not even the worst thing that’s happened to me at a gig. I didn’t get booed off, no one threw anything, and I still got paid (eventually).

There’s something about being in a room full of people laughing at a joke where the punchline is essentially you, especially after you’ve just done a set and brought some real big dick energy onto the stage.

Not sure what the moral of the story is, I guess if you read a racist joke on a bit of paper, don’t read it out on stage. I think breaking the terms and conditions of your joke competition can handle it.

Also, I do admit it was a good joke, and I’m trying to get in contact with the author of it to see if I can use it in my set.

• Jamie D’Souza’s Brownie is on at Monkey Barrel Cabaret Voltaire at 10pm at the Edinburgh Fringe, starting on Tuesday July 29.

Published: 15 Jul 2025