Isma Almas Bombs Review by Ariadne Cass-Maran

Isma Alma's show opens with her burkha-clad alter ego, Mrs. Hussein, who delivers some self deprecating jokes about Muslim ladies which, were they delivered by anyone else, might come across as a little racist. However, as Mrs. Hussein departs and Isma Almas enters, we come to appreciate that if anyone has the right to poke fun at what it means to be a Muslim woman, it's her.

Her show takes us on a very personal, often quite painful, personal history of her childhood growing up in Pakistan and Bradford and her relationship with her family. But this is not self pitying stuff; this is a funny show and she takes us through the bombs of her life with honesty and wit.

Technically, the show does not hang together as well as it might, with film clips interrupting rather than enhancing the pace, but this is a story well worth experiencing, with a complicated, genuinely interesting woman at its heart.

 Read Sarah Clark's review of Isma Almas Bombs at Fringe