Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

As a straight woman of indeterminate but escalating years as this show becomes more candid, Prashasti Singh is nevertheless identifiably an unmarried woman – a demographic which patriarchal Indian society passes muttering judgement upon, suspecting her of ‘crazy lady’ tendencies.

Experimenting with various forms of dating, as well as philosophy and therapy, she seems stuck in a pattern of attracting unworthy men. Fortunately, time spent with her married friends has disabused her of any notions that they're happier than she is. Unfortunately, her rather desperate romantic life appears to be indicative of a deeper malaise.

Men are essentially dismissed from having any further part to play in this show, their arrested development meaning that the frustrated Singh can't be bothered to pay them much further heed.

So well-versed in counselling is she by her late thirties that she dictates the issues she wants to explore to her therapist. And while she realises she can only apportion so much blame to her mother, who was a young woman when she gave birth to the comic, Singh questions the role models she was directed towards.

The self-sacrificing icon of Mother India is one thing, encouraging generations of women to make themselves subservient to the menfolk and children in their life is blatant propaganda that she can see through. But the young Singh was very taken with a go-getting distant cousin who smashed glass ceilings in local government and law, as impressive in the flesh as she was in her mythology.

However, this woman also left her with an abiding pearl of regressive, anti-feminist wisdom that has gnawed at Singh's soul ever since, even as she strived to match the cousin and become a high achiever. Taking the lesson as gospel, she became a ‘pathetic worshipper’ of substandard men, behaviour that she's only now trying to correct.

The comic lets this unresolved tension sit in the background of her hour as she explores other possible role models for herself, swiftly rejecting the Bollywood actress turned right-wing politician Kangana Ranaut, whom she still carries some lingering respect for as a disruptor of the established order, while recognising that she's a very toxic cautionary tale about  the cult of personality. And possibly one of those ‘crazy ladies’ you hear so much about.

Cool and analytic in her setups, Singh nevertheless builds tremendous heads of steam and forceful self-mockery in her punchlines, chiding her younger self with a brutal lack of compassion. 

For someone so thoughtful, so outwardly wise and collected, she's capable of experiencing a moment of extreme spiritual self-revelation in the course of a flight, overcome by pure goddess energy and direction of purpose, that's completely dispelled by the time the podcast she's listening to ends.

The rhythmic contrast between her calm and agitated states doesn't pall with repetition and is invariably explosively funny, carrying momentum into the next routine.

Ultimately, Singh's story arrives at another childhood memory, another older female influence. In marked contrast to the driven cousin, this aunt is laissez-faire and in touch with the cosmos, benevolently putting out good into the universe in the belief that it comes back to you.

For once, the childhood Singh is perceptive enough to appreciate the limitations of this approach. And the show ends with a rogue element uproariously hijacking the moment, obliterating all the acute psychological study and distress that has gone before in a moment of pure, primal nature.

Review date: 22 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Underbelly Bristo Square