Doc Brown comes on stage in the hip-hop uniform of all-black clothing, lots of bling and black-out shades, and starts rapping “It’s all about me” in suitably bombastic tones. But Brown isn’t all he seems, as the rap peters out, the gear comes off and he is no longer a rapper, but a stand-up making his debut at this year’s Fringe. It's a terrific and captivating opening to an hour that speeds by.
Doc Brown, Pleasance Courtyard ****
Brown spent 10 years on the hip-hop scene, and this show, Unfamous, charts his journey from young bad-boy rapper to the 31-year-old stand-up comedian he is now. He describes the rock‘n’roll lifestyle - although I dare say a late-night version of this show would have juicier anecdotes - and namechecks those he has worked with, including Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. He also talks about his big sister, Zadie Smith; he’s cool about being forever mentioned in the same sentence as her at the Fringe, he says, but it wasn’t so street when he was a rapper to have a novelist in the family.
Brown, like his sister, loves words but is not above a painful pun; when he uses an overhead projector to show us photographs, he tells us it came from a science lab in 1973 - “So it’s definitely old school.”
His act is mostly storytelling rather than telling jokes, but Brown knows when to punctuate his tale with a witty quip, or a funny rap. There are moments when he doesn’t look entirely comfortable in front of a comedy audience, and the ending could do with tightening up, but this is a solidly constructed hour of entertainment. Until 29 August
An Audience with Imran Yusuf, Espionage ****
The Free Fringe is throwing up some great talent, not least this young Londoner of Asian extraction who has been gigging in clubs for a while but appears to be on the cusp of a breakthrough into the mainstream. Yusuf’s material is almost entirely about being a British Muslim, or should that be a Muslim who lives in Britain - a question he poses more than once in a very well-thought-through set that subverts a lot of notions about racism.
He has some great stories about the time he spent at middle school in New Jersey; it remains the only time, he tells us, that he has ever been picked on for being English. “You people complain about being called infidel, but you don’t know what racism is until you’ve been called ‘English muffin’.”
Yusuf has a tendency to be a little preachy, but he’s clued-up enough to draw it back with an unexpected punchline when he feels he is losing the room. When he isn’t talking about racism, though, he’s leering at the women in the front row and suggesting they meet him in the loos. Classy.
He’s a very animated performer and a young man in a hurry; Yusuf references coming back next year and being a big star a few too many times, but there’s is no doubting his talent. As he says, catch him before you have to pay for the privilege. Until 29 August
