As I’m In Leicester and I have time to kill before the Comedian Of The Year final, it seems only right to see at least one other show at the festival. How lucky for me that my friend Pravanya is doing a work in progress show up here, conveniently close to the next venue and conveniently timed.
Pravanya is such a fun comedian to watch, especially when everything is chaos and ramshackle. I’d argue, maybe, that actually seeing a WIP from Pravanya is maybe the purest form of her (save for Party).
She’s got a wonderful premise and throughline for a show, based on her early love of Bollywood movies, using the generic structure of them as the framing device to talk about her, her family, and her love life. It’s wonderful.
It’s, I think fair to say, the kind of work in progress that is “show but no jokes” rather than “jokes but no show” - but those will come for her, when she sits down to do it. The groundwork for this is the hardest bit at times, and there’s lots of things to hang jokes on here.
The show under-runs a bit, but as Pravanya says, no one’s ever sad a comedy show finishes too early. I eagerly await something that’s closer to the finished product.