Review of the visiting Chinese comedian

At the Melbourne comedy festival earlier this year, Australian-based Chinese comic He Huang won acclaim for her show confronting issues of race by performing full hour in the guise of a white man.

There’s nothing so high-concept nor so focussed for her second trip to the UK,  however, as she presents a loose and scrappy collection of mostly underpowered routines that struggle to build  momentum.

A huge part of that is down to her indulging in inconsequential banter throughout. She seems keener to chat than deliver a show, just the usual questions about marriage, kids, jobs, nationalities etc. Some of this sets up a potentially fertile contrast between the worldviews of white and Chinese audience members, but it’s short-lived.

Meanwhile, other exchanges seem more like mere fact-finding. We spend some time, for example, trying to figure out what the equivalent to Bali might be for British holidaymakers without quite deciding. Nor is there any reason to, it doesn’t come up again, it just pads out a couple of amusing stories she has about her ill-fated attempts at backpacking (in Thailand as it happens, not even Bali).

When she mentions whether one mildly witty exchange with a punter might be clipped for social media, it raises a feeling we’re being treated as meme fodder more than a live audience, even if she meant it as a joke.

Aside from the droll travel tales, another promising strand concerns the fact that being unmarried after 27 means she’s considered a ‘leftover lady’ in the small Chinese town she’s from – not least by her mother who widens the Overton window of suitable husbands with every passing year. Not that Huang’s in any rush, she’s clearly enjoying the sexual possibilities her new life in Australia is offering.

Occasionally there’s some bite to this cross-cultural viewpoint, making edgy jokes about, for example, being a survivor of China’s one-child policy as an only daughter. But as the audience recoil a bit, so does she, stepping back into more accessible – for which read ‘generic’ – sex and dating material. Yet this has a little more bite than most because she’s playing against outdated stereotypes of the demure Asian woman.

However, despite some modest success via Australia’s Got Talent, the affable and relatively low-key Huang doesn’t appear to have quite figured out what she wants to be, the Everywoman talking about dating and getting a bikini wax or the insightful social commentator with a distinctive global perspective. It’s possible to be both, but the lack of commitment here leaves her as neither, yet with tantalising glimpses of what she could be.

• He Huang is at the Brighton Komedia tomorrow before heading to Barcelona, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Review date: 17 Sep 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Leicester Square Theatre