Paul Sinha

Whilst the alpha-male fraternity of comedy big-hitters have been busy prostituting themselves on endless TV quiz shows, gay Asian comic Paul Sinha has been quietly building a formidable reputation at the Fringe. But it should be during this year’s show, Sinha’s fourth solo Edinburgh outing, that his intelligent brand of confessional stand-up really makes its mark.

As tonight’s audience file in, Sinha lurks anxiously at the corner of the stage, sizing up each punter as they come in. But it isn’t nerves causing Sinha’s uneasiness. Instead, his beady eyes seem to be endlessly counting the number of people in the room, a suspicion verified when he later gleefully announces that tonight is his largest Fringe audience ever.

Indeed, such creeping OCD is the most obvious theme that emerges from 39 Years of Solitude. Although the ostensible focus is Sinha’s loneliness—he’s been single for the last 18 years—this is really just a vehicle for him to lovingly explain his obsession with pedantry, knowledge retention and, above all, quizzing. Not only has this geeky pastime served to fill any love-shaped hole in Sinha’s life, but it has also helped him escape from a number of potentially dangerous encounters.

And although the theme of quizzing is neither a new or particularly exciting addition to Sinha’s stand-up arsenal, it works perfectly here as a vehicle from which to weave constant threads of sharp social commentary. Polished and assured but always charmingly self deprecating, this is clearly Sinha’s most assured Fringe performance to date.