Ahir Shah: Texture

One mustn't judge on appearance alone, notes Ahir Shah, in a long, wordy and compelling takedown of the dating app, Tinder. It's certainly not lost on him that to accept or reject on the basis of a sexy selfie is to give full rein to those same impulses evident in signs which read "no dogs, no blacks, no jews". Shah is after a life with more "texture", in the pursuit of which he must reject hollowness in comedy and shallowness in life.

And judge not on the basis of Shah's tiny, sweaty, free venue, because for the most part he succeeds, producing a set marked by linguistic novelty, structural experimentation and impeccable self-awareness.

At a time when the "cost of living" is a tense political battleground, Shah latches on to the erroneous idea that this must simply be seen as "existing" – "the cost of existence plus love" is, for him, a far more feasible formulation. It's a setup which allows him to get his emotional juices flowing, bolstering observational fare with a more rewarding next-step around what this means for real, feeling people. Take that tired old target, religion: Shah's routine about Hinduism, and the very human focus for its divine mysticism, shunts most of the heard-them-before cracks about the Pope right down to the bottom of the comedy caste system.

A little too often, Shah relies on a too-limited comic toolbox – building to verbose, dense climaxes, is a favourite. And there's a hint of Oxbridge arrogance at times. Really, Shah has no need to draw attention to his obvious intelligence.