Brown Women Comedy

Brown Women Comedy rocking it at this year’s comedy festival

If you’re from a multicultural background looking for some comedy about the trials and tribulations of your culture and the trauma your parents inflicted on you, look no further than the guaranteed laughs of Brown Women Comedy. An empowering, candid line-up, produced by Australian South Asian Centre, starring Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, Daizy Maan, Amna Bee, Urvi Majumdar, Kripa Krithivasan and Moose Jattana. As a woman from a Cypriot background, I could relate to every word. Sometimes everything just gets way too serious, or as Urvi put it so eloquently, her family’s love language is fighting, so letting off some steam was a welcome relief.

I was initially drawn to this show, firstly, because of emerging Canadian-Pakistani comedian Amna Bee, who I reviewed at the last comedy festival, and I felt with this show she was even funnier, more comfortable with her body on stage, you could almost hear the gasps of the parents in the audience when she was telling her sex jokes. Secondly, as a poet, I have been interested in seeing what Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa is up to, as she is also a poet, who became very popular after her appearance in Australia’s Got Talent where she performed a very powerful poem about being Sikh and hair, and she then went on to make theatre and film projects. This is the first time I’d seen her do comedy and I was impressed. Her jokes on the difference in the levels of racism in Perth compared to hippy and inclusive Melbourne, were very interesting and hilarious.

Urvi, who is a writer for The Project, was a stand out for me. As a woman who is often labelled as crazy, loud, agro, I could relate to her jokes about bitch face and chill girl. Many themes were explored across all the sets, including mental health, divorce, sex, difficulties of growing up in Australia, and what was screaming out the most – overbearing, controlling parents that want you home by 6pm. Even though I’m older now and I don’t live with my parents, it was good to laugh about these things as a way of possibly healing past trauma, so I very much welcomed all topics explored, even though some moments were quite dark, such as Moose’s explorations on bisexuality and bipolar. Kripa’s jokes about being the eldest in her family, and Daisy’s superstition jokes, were also delightful. A highly recommended show for women from diverse backgrounds.

Koraly Dimitriadis

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2023/shows/brown-women-comedy#