Paul Sinha: "I don’t get angry at the act, I get angry at the audience"

"There seems to be a vacuum in political comedy right now," says Paul Sinha, "which is odd when people are more interested in politics than ever." Sinha has been working hard to redress this balance over the last few years and his current show, Extreme Anti-White Vitriol, proves that you can speak intelligently about racism, homophobia and the state of the nation while still being gut-bustingly funny.

Sinha stands out on the comedy scene as one of the few gay, Indian, ex-GPs currently touring. He’s already got one Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination under his belt and has managed to make enemies of the BNP and half the audience of Soccer A.M. "I don’t mind if I alienate a few people," he says "It shows I’m doing something right." But he’s adamant that his focus on always making people laugh. "When you do a solo gig, you’re very much aware that you’re the reason people left the house."

Although Sinha’s on-stage persona is more thoughtful than aggressive, his material is uncompromising. He tries to make this clear when advertising, from calling his show Extreme Anti-White Vitriol to insisting that the phrase 'talks about race murder' appeared on fliers for a previous show "so that people wouldn’t be surprised when I started to talk about race murder." This is brave, considering how many comedians are currently trying to be as mainstream-friendly as possible. He laughs and admits this is a trend in comedy. "I find myself watching acts and thinking, 'you’re doing a lot more observational stuff than you were a few years ago.'"

He's also critical of some shock comedy and recently spoke on his blog about Frankie Boyle. While he defends Tramadol Nights for using the words nigger and paki in sketches that ultimately 'punch up' at the establishment, he disapproves of jokes that 'punch down' at groups less able to defend themselves. "I couldn’t write jokes like that' he says. 'Who am I to make jokes about disabled people? I don’t know if this is a trend in comedy, but when I see that I don’t get angry at the act, I get angry at the audience."

The all-time king of punching down, self-proclaimed “homophoic arsehole” Jim Davidson, went to see Paul Sinha at a club gig earlier this year. He described him as “the Indian poof” and “an awful, jealous, socialist c*nt.”  If that’s not enough to have every right thinking person in Scotland queueing round the block to see Sinha’s show, nothing is.