Mamoun Elagab @ Pleasance Courtyard
In his debut hour at the Edinburgh Fringe, Mamoun Elagab shows us his roguish side and his insightful, sensitive one
Mamoun Elagab is a unique voice in a roster of Edinburgh Fringe acts from London – but his capital is a slightly different one, and his debut hour seeks to offer up a perspective Fringe-goers may not have heard from much before. Not only this, Why I Love White People is a shop with a sensitive outlook on friendships found in unexpected places, subverting stereotypes and, finally, loss. But whilst we get a decent enough sense of who Elagab is as a person, his persona as a comic feels as though it’s still in development.
We learn that Elagab is a man of the people; he enjoys cross-cultural friendships and has often found himself surrounded by people from different cultural backgrounds – and is mixed race himself. He makes a concerted effort to unite us audience members in a similar way. He uses material to educate his audience on terms such as ‘peak’ and ‘g-check’, and what exactly a chicken shop is. He's trying to bring us all up to speed so some of the show’s contents might make more sense, but his tone of voice very much leans towards mischievously mocking. For example, he tries to subvert stereotypes by showing us drill music, then teaching us the true meaning of their lyrics – with a twinkle in his eye.
On occasion, his tech-heavy sections halt the show’s flow with their stop-start nature. There’s also a slight awkwardness about Elagab that’s, more than anything else, likely to do with finding his way around a full hour. His joke delivery can also feel a little unfinished at times, as though there’s more for him to expand on, to wring more humour from.
All that said, there’s something here and Mamoun Elagab is a likeable act. An emotive ending brings a deliberately unexpected sensitivity to the hour, and this tone shift breaks down an invisible wall. We start to see a little more about the person he is, as she shares with us the source of his values: his parents. Once he finds a way to marry up the show’s distinctive threads, Mamoun Elagab will be on to a winner.
Mamoun Elagab: Why I Love White People, Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker One), until 27 Aug (not 15), 6.10pm, £8.50-11