One of the stronger bills for The Muslims Are Coming rolling tour, this evening offered a varied line-up of acts mainly dipping into their faith background for material. Compere Muhsin Yesilada discloses that he’s doing his PhD on Islamophobia and Islamist extremism. But as befits his hosting role, the self-styled ‘little Turkish boy’ eschews anything of depth for playful mugging with the crowd. A routine about his nephew being racially abused at school loses impact with its excessive contrivance. But he strikes a chord protesting the difficulty of telling Muslim parents about dates.

Faizan Shah is already building a considerable reputation. And it’s striking how quickly he expands his drolly downbeat outlook into an open admission of his depression and suicidal thoughts, successfully balancing light and dark in observations on marriage, class, sectarianism and the difficulty of impressing immigrant parents. Born in Lahore but predominantly raised in Burnley, a culture shock that he superbly channels with recourse to Will Smith, his suggestion that he’s politically ‘non-binary’ feels clunkily edgy. 

Tez Ilyas’ inclinations towards political material has obviously benefited from the ascension of Asians to the highest offices in Britain. And he opines the success of Sunak, Patel and Braverman while waggishly mocking them. Far less showy than when he made his stand-up breakthrough, Ilyas has developed into a more measured and witty social commentator, adopting middle-aged, contrarian positions such as diversity having gone too far or re-examining racism he attracted in his youth from an ironic distance.

By contrast, Nabil Abdulrashid (main picture) is growing ever more swaggeringly assured, pitting the cultural distinctions of his Nigerian heritage against that of his Pakistani wife; cheerfully lambasting Australians for their friendliness and ’fessing up to his criminal misdemeanours with a rascally lack of care. He might employ broad strokes to characterise London gang conflict as camp, but his ebullient, charismatic incorrigibility is infectious. With wide-ranging and culturally informed material, you sense he’s capable of playing much bigger rooms internationally. 

The Muslims Are Coming reviewed at Glee, Glasgow; main picture: Matt Stronge.