Review: Thenjiwe – The Mandela Effect

South African mononym Thenjiwe is a bold, genuinely brave stand-up. But she's been ill-served for her first full-length English language show. With no technician present on the afternoon I saw her show, she was left to deliver the entire 45 minutes seemingly unaware that her mic was sporadically dropping in and out.

She aims to present sophisticated and ambitious material in her second language. Grasping for edginess, as when she casts herself as a gold-digger or usurper of widows in late husbands' affections, she subverts gender power structures and even fantasises about having sex with Bill Cosby. But cautious and uncertain in her setups, she nervously uses too many words and the satirical impetus is blunted. That's even more of an issue when she opines on the linguistic slipperiness of English and the cultural differences between her home country, the US and UK, the racism and ignorance she's encountered. Acutely observant of prejudice but self-aware, she has a lovely conceit about making a Rosa Parks-style stand on an aeroplane that twists on her own naivety.

Unfortunately, it's downed by an over-elaborate delivery and a cliched companion routine about her not even making headlines if the plane crashes because Trevor Noah is (supposedly) also on the plane. Elsewhere, she draws sting from her routines about US racism by making so many sweeping generalisations about Americans that she unwittingly cedes the moral high ground. Hopefully Thenjiwe's got time to adapt as she's clearly got drive and intelligence.