Maybe not everybody’s cup of tea, but a fine brew nevertheless, and one that jolts you awake

Not to beat around the bush, but I would be scared shitless if I came across Aditi Mittal in a badly-lit street. I’ve seen her imitating creepy (male) cat callers, and it’s one of those imitations that feel like an improvement on the original. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Performers like Mittal have the ability to engage with gender stereotypes through imitations that go one step beyond the original, lived ‘performance’, into darker, more problematic territory. In that sense, stand-up comedy does the exact same thing through humour that academic theorists do through their books and their research: busting mythologies through faithful — and ironic — documentation.

Mittal’s hour-long special, Things They Wouldn’t Let Me Say, was recently released on Netflix. First things first: long-time Mittal fans will be both enthralled and slightly disappointed. Enthralled because like most hour-long specials, TTWLMS is a bit of a greatest hits package. And disappointed because of the same thing, because greatest hits packages are generally not the best-structured pieces. I’ve watched Mittal live twice (which I think is a low number for someone you follow; stand-up fans even watch the exact same show twice) and both occasions were more than two years ago. And I had, I realised, watched about 15-20 minutes of TTWLMS. This is not a bad thing by itself — for me, it brought back memories of seeing her live for the first time and being blown away by her confidence on-stage. But I can understand why some fans feel short-changed.

Returning to imitations: my favourite moments in the show featured Mittal’s comedic alter-ego Dr Mrs Dolly Lutchuke, the ‘sexpert’ with a funny accent and hilarious facial expressions. Mittal has said, in the past, that Lutchuke was born because she felt uncomfortable talking about sex as herself (i.e. as a real-life Indian woman). This is extremely significant in today’s climate, where increasingly, it’s not what you say but where you come from that matters. The Black Mirror episode The Waldo Moment, was a commentary on much the same thing.

To sum up, I enjoyed TTWLMS because it’s very well-thought out comedy — and conversely, it’s comedy that makes you think as well. It isn’t however, a rollicking, LOL-filled hour that builds up a ‘laughter momentum’ in the first half-hour and then steps on the gas (Hasan Minhaj’s show, for instance, was a masterclass at this accumulate-explode rhythm). It’s more like short, smartly written literary satire: maybe not everybody’s cup of tea, but a fine brew nevertheless, and one that jolts you awake.

Things They Wouldn’t Let Me Say is now available on Netflix India.

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