Netflix special reviewed by Steve Bennett

Judging from her own account, Aditi Mittal’s very presence on stage is a political act.  As one of the very first female comedians in India - or ‘one of the very first vaginas in the business’, as she provocatively puts it - she has clearly had to take on a huge amount of societal prejudice.

To this day she is dealing with the tired old ‘women are not funny’ bullshit (thanks, Christopher Hitchens) and an assumption that female comics must be desperate for attention, unable to secure a husband and probably promiscuous too. That was certainly the impression one man who booked her had.

So she uses her platform on stage to give two fingers to the misogyny and even molestation she must deal with every day. Whoops and cheers accompany some of her more defiant punchlines, which may not always be hilarious but are almost always packed with attitude.

Elsewhere in the set, she identifies as ‘upper-upper-upper-upper-upper middle class’ in a clearly defined hierarchy, while ribbing her compatriots of a few common traits, such as a reluctance to pay taxes.

 But it is her outspoken feminism which defines her Netflix half-hour, a purposeful riposte to the outdated arguments of that agitator Hitchens and any man griping that the pendulum is finally swinging back women’s way.

• Comedians Of The World – Aditi Mittal: Things They Wouldn't Let Me Say is on Netflix now. Watch here.

Review date: 9 Jan 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett