REVIEW: AZIZ ANSARI
QPAC Concert Hall
Wednesday 10 October, 2012Little Tommy Fresh isn't just blowing up — he's growing up.
Aziz Ansari's last two stand-up shows (Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening and Dangerously Delicious) were focused almost entirely on pop culture ephemera and meandering stories about hanging out with his famous rapper friends, and they were brilliant. There aren't many other guys capable of filling that lane. But in Buried Alive, the show that brings him to our fair shores, he's embraced themes of birth, death, love and marriage. If it's possible for a 29-year-old to have a midlife crisis, he's having one.
On the one hand, you could argue it's a shame to see him cover ground that's been well worn by a thousand other comedians. On the other hand, you'd be wrong.
Ansari takes these hoary domestic tropes to interesting new places. His look at marriage from the perspective of someone who's never heard of it before, for example, exposes just how strange that tradition really is ("I want to keep hanging out until one of us dies"), and he's able to put a fresh spin on internet dating, gay marriage, the challenges of raising kids — you know, all that stuff you thought you could quite happily live without hearing a comedian discuss ever again.
This more mature approach particularly pays off when he discusses his parents' arranged marriage, and his increased awareness of the sexualisation of western culture after a trip to India. Yes, it's funny ("you literally met my mother in the time it takes to watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother?"), but there's also an earnesty here he might not have been able to pull off a few years ago. It's actually reminiscent of Louis C.K., if Louis C.K. came from a poor Indian family.
Naturally, there's also material that's closer in tone to what you'd expect from Ansari, like his completely accurate breakdown of the brainwashing effects of modern music, or the entire encore, which does for Barack Obama and Seal what previous shows did for Kanye West, Jay-Z and R. Kelly. Even in these instances, though, Ansari's cadence is more relaxed, more confident, than before.
In Buried Alive, Aziz Ansari has delivered his funniest, most assured hour to date. I can't wait to see what he does on the other side of 30.
