Nish Kumar joins us in the Pub Corner: Binface vs Farage, sketch comedy's comeback, and traumatising Brett Goldstein
Angry humour from a really nice guy...
Switch on any British panel show from the last 10 years and chances are you’ll have had a laugh with Nish Kumar. Nowadays he’s not only delivering the side-splitters, but also serving up sharp observations (okay, informed digs) about British politics at the same time.
After doing his first comedy gig at Durham university after fellow comedian Ed Gamble signed him up for it, Nish has featured on every comedy outlet you can imagine – hosting Radio 4’s Newsjack, touring his solo stand up shows, digging in on Taskmaster, and hosting his own political satire show The Mash Report. Is there anything in TV he hasn’t done?
“Got Hulu to make a second series of High fidelity” he laments. Safe to say, having been doing comedy for over 10 years, he's basically reset the rules of what a successful comedian looks like. Just get that timeline right.
“Over 10 years? That’s a nice way of putting it," he jokes
"It’s been twenty years. I’ve been doing comedy – and this is a horrible phrase – but I’ve been doing comedy for most of your life. It’s weird when you meet voting age adults who say 'I’ve been watching you on TV since I was a child' and they’re 25.” A backhanded compliment if ever we've received one.
Alongside his current tour Angry Humour From A Really Nice Guy, Nish co-hosts the weekly Pod Save the UK along with Coco Khan. And if you listen you’re in good company, as Nish points out — Sarah Jessica Parker mentioned she was a fan.
After touring his last show Nish Don’t Kill My Vibe “seemingly across the entire planet” Nish is back and has already kicked off his next tour. But he still had time to stop by for a pint in our joint local Hope & Anchor in Brixton to chat about his best and worst career moments, what sitcoms he’d bring back, and some Indian-dad-approved curry spots in Croydon
1. SKETCH COMEDY IS A LOST ART
In a world of TikTok comedians and shock comedy it's easy to forget about the glory days of sketch comedy, when it was one thick roster of Monty Python and The Fast Show getting you through the week. And whilst there's a plethora of fantastic sitcoms gracing the tens of streaming platforms, it's that bygone era of OG sketch comedy Nish misses.
“If we’re talking individual sketches, I really grew up in a golden era of sketch comedy in the UK because there was a lot of money being put into it. Things like Goodness Gracious Me, The Fast Show, Harry Enfield's show. There was a lot of stand alone sketch comedy, and hopefully we’ll see a resurgence with things like SNL UK and so many brilliant comedians doing things on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.”
When it comes to individual sketches that stay with him there's one he hasn't forgotten.
"Goodness Gracious Me was a really seismic piece of television for me growing up in the late 90s in the UK as a British Asian," he recalls.
"The premise of that sketch was 'What if Indians went for an English meal in the same way that White Brits went out for an Indian?', and behaved the same way. It was an inversion and it did all the jokes brilliantly."
2. RANTING IS MORE THAN JUST A TOUR TITLE
Non-comedy laymen (such as us) forget that tours have to be named months and months in advance, meaning that their seemingly incongruous names aren't trying to be cool and detached — they'd just been conjured before any of the actual content had been written.
Saying that, Nish's current tour title Angry Humour From A Really Nice Guy is pretty evergreen. In fact it could describe his entire career in a nutshell. As Nish puts it, "It felt pleasingly cumbersome and also the most accurate description of what I do onstage." But what is he currently ranting about? Well, there's a couple of things...
“I don’t understand Huel, why do you want to drink your dinners, why do you hate joy? What do you have against chewing? That much Huel can’t be good for you," he starts.
“Your mistake here is assuming there are things I rant about off air which I don’t talk about on stage," pondering his other current pet peeves.
"There are certain things people assume I’ve said which were part of a hot mic snafu but they were actually 100% intentional," he adds.
"I think the last thing I ranted about was the whole Clacton by-election – that whole situation is a total mess but I also don't want to talk about that man [Nigel Farage] more than we have to. It’s a classic type of post 2015 conservative who spends 5% of their time saying 'everyone takes offence' and the other 50% saying 'How dare you say that I am upset, I must take action.'
“I think it’s funny that it’s him versus Binface — like, in England, even our joke candidates have to be members of the landed gentry. Even Binface had to have inherited money — we just can’t fathom someone being in politics without a title.”
3. HE'S GOT MORE THAN A COUPLE OF FAMOUS FANS
As someone who started out his solo living years with fellow comedian Ed Gamble, and has since collaborated with almost every famous funny face in the UK, we thought it was pretty safe to assume he had more than a couple of famous fans of his own.
“There have been some cool ones," Nish admits when probed.
"The coolest was when I did a talk show with Eric Idol – Monty Python is totemic in British culture – and someone went to introduce us and he went 'No, I know who you are, I watch the Mash Report, I really like it.' That was pretty mad.
"I’ve worked with most of the writers from Goodness Gracious Me as well. Sarah Jessica Parker said in an interview that she listened to Pod Save the UK which is the funniest thing I’ve heard," he laughs.
"No idea if it’s true or not."
4. THERE IS SOMETHING THAT MAKES HIM PATRIOTIC
Nish Kumar and patriotic aren't natural word associations, as anyone who has listened to some of his stand up probably will have gathered. However, that doesn't negate his love of Britain – or rather, some of the things that Brits produce.
“There are few things I’m patriotic about," Nish agrees, "But our comedy scene is so brilliant and produces so many fantastic people.
"There has been a deficit in TV comedy but potentially there's a resurgence coming," he reflects, nodding to the young talent of the new SNL UK cast in particular as a signpost.
"If I could revive one thing..." he ponders. "The thing is, you don’t want to invest in too many revivals, you want something that feels new.
"My honest answer is I’d like to revive the premise of giving artists money and creative freedom. I’d bring back a properly funded BBC. If you have public broadcasters they can take risks . We used to have a good televisual ecosystem with people taking more risks. Then if they did well, they'd get picked up by other channels."
But on a lighter note, "the Hulu reboot of High Fidelity" also made the list. "I didn’t think we needed it, then I watched it and I loved it."
5. UK AND US AUDIENCES ARE MORE ALIKE THAN YOU THINK
English humour and American humour are notoriously different. Ask any comedian how they calibrate their sets and they'll outline how they have bombed on stage trying to do it the same on both sides of the Atlantic. For Nish though, it's less about politics and more about pints.
“The only genuine difference I can say is American audiences are louder. They’re more immediately convinced that this is going to be good. In a lot of British shows the audience has to warm up into it whereas the Americans come in quite hot.
"I think my [international] audiences would get along with one another, they’re quite similar unrelated to nationality. I look out to my crowd and I see a lot of Big Thief tee shirts, a lot of t-shirts with left leaning politician slogans on there. I know my guys."
6. HIS WORST DAY ON THE JOB ENDED IN A NEWS HEADLINE AND AN 80 MINUTE EXPLAINER
On paper Nish is the modern benchmark for what a successful career in comedy looks like. But somewhat reassuringly, there's just as much failure that has pitted his path there.
“I had a gig so bad that it was in the news," Nish points out. "Failure is interesting because it’s part of the process."
"I’ve been chased off stage by a heavy metal band. I’ve been escorted out of at least three venues by security staff because there were people waiting to beat me up. A man once unplugged my mic during a set. He went and found the tech booth, and unplugged me," he laughs.
"This gig [in 2019] was so bad," he reminisces.
"The headliner was Brett Goldstein and he and I planned to go for a drink after. What’s funny is no matter how many Emmys he wins, and movies he makes with Jennifer Lopez, he can still physically recall the tension in that room. He’ll just bring it up, recounting the trauma. Even working with JLo and Harrison Ford can’t erase that trauma – and it didn’t even happen to him!"
7. A NISH TRAVEL DOC COULD HAPPEN – BUT IT WOULD ALL BE ABOUT COFFEE SHOPS
"In October 2026 it will be exactly 20 years since the first time I did stand up comedy," Nish says.
"What an absolutely pointless thing to have devoted half your life to. It’s like being good at the recorder. It’s like why have you done that?” he laughs.
But how have things changed in that time? Heading into his latest tour, he shared the things that have been upgraded and the traditions that have stayed the same in that time.
"Zero megabuses. Call me Mr Bigtime. Sleeping in an actual hotel," he counts off. "Touring was hard 15 years ago when we were all driving through the night, sleeping on university hall floors or on all night megabuses," he adds.
"Tour essentials nowadays are still the same — I like to get into a specific album or artist’s discography, because you're spending a lot of time in transit. And the cinema, going to the movies is a pretty essential part." It's pretty rock n roll stuff.
"The things that have changed are my fancy dinners, and my nice coffees. I've sort of got a working network across the UK of the cool, delicious coffee shops in whatever city I'm in, and it's great."
Does it sound like the tamest Netflix travel documentary ever?
Yes.
"Me going to hipster coffee shops doesn't even touch Jack Whitehall's [Travels with my Father]," Nish rebuts. "That's not even pejorative."
8. HE IS A SOUTH LONDONER THROUGH AND THROUGH
Finally, we can't leave a chat with a born and bred Londoner without asking them for their favourite spots, and refreshingly, as Croydon-born and South London-stayed guy, Nish's recommendations are largely South faves:
"Singnburi has moved, it was in Leyton it's now in Shoreditch. There are various coffee shops I love, like F Mondays, and Stir in Brixton. And Kaffeine, with a K, cause it's 'Kool'. Everything with a K is cool, apart from the KKK.
"There's a restaurant called Tindli in Croydon and that is, and I cannot stress this enough, Indian food that meets the approval of my father – the crankiest and most Indian man in human history. There's also a restaurant called Fern in East Croydon, really great."
Basically, just head to Croydon. And no, he's not on their tourism board, we checked.
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