Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Sincerity doesn't come easily to Bilal Zafar, a comic who's built his reputation on wind-ups and affecting respect for the patently rubbish.

He's at it again in Rubicon, damning Jeremy Clarkson with backhanded praise; hailing a deeper cut of Ricky Gervais dross than Alley Cats; delighting in the absurd mischaracterisation of his stand-up by late, unlamented culture commentary site The Conservative Woman.

He's also been aspirationally wasting the staff of Harrods' time with questions about their most expensive dinner party baubles, pretending to be an international jet-setter, baiting the hook and reeling them in.

However, an element of the correspondence conveys him back to his childhood delight in the soft drink Rubicon and other, similar treats, mismarketed to kids as healthy when they were anything but.

More than simply a beverage and nostalgia hit for Zafar, Rubicon is symbolic. Of what, he's not sure. Race? Class? And what to make of it being repackaged into an absurdly overpriced tipple for the white middle-classes that his wife hails from?

Zafar has had to do plenty of reassessing of late. Not so long ago an acclaimed newcomer, he's tangentially carved a successful side hustle online and drops an in-joke or two for his followers. But the clips he shares of his screen career are underwhelming and he knows it, accentuates it even, moping at the ethnically cast bit-part he missed out on in the Barbie movie, seething at the actor who beat him to the pathetically tiny role.

As with a gig to 200 vicars which triggered the Muslim British-Pakistani comic, it's unclear how genuine this audition disappointment is. Like his carefully expressed disdain for the Indian cricket team and not Indians, he's pretty guarded in sharing his truest feelings. Routinely offhand to his audience, it's with the tongue-in-cheek of a man who's power-dressed in a jacket at least two sizes too big.

Dropping his front temporarily, he has something to confess. Something shameful at the modern Edinburgh Fringe, where serious artists talk about finding themselves by ingesting hallucinogens in South America or being abused by an elderly clown in Paris. Zafar has been forced to get a day job. Like a loser.

Only in showbusiness could nakedly grafting to support your marriage and dreams be perceived as a negative. Yet Zafar is entertainingly prickly about his compromised circumstances, undermining the unimpeachable social good of his new vocation and the benefits it brings him personally with testy dismissals.

Rather than hard-working, dedicated public servants patiently reshaping the world for the better, what's required are flashy public acts by performers unwilling to surrender to their ego death.

And so Zafar is pivoting into presenting and gameshow hosting, with his own lazily executed, soft drink-related format.

A fun if flimsy set-piece, it benefited from a game volunteer on the day I caught it, who gave as good as he got. But to the comic's credit, he'd already created the conditions whereby he'd find such a person, his by-turns condescending and needy interactions with the audience laying the groundwork.

Looser and less narrative-driven than in shows gone by, Zafar's humbling makes him appear a more rounded performer. It offers up a broader range of perspectives for him to take, stretching his persona to incorporate a grounding authenticity, despite his instincts to torpedo that. It will be intriguing to see if he retains it going forward, second job or otherwise.

Review date: 24 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Underbelly Bristo Square