Aditya Mayya Pretends To Be Sad comedy review: Bleakly pithy
This witty hour finds poignant truths in grief, depression and the slippery boundary between fact and fiction.
A 27-year-old Canadian stand-up who puts the deathly into deadpan, Aditya Mayya has a tragic backstory: a family history of depression, with a younger brother who killed himself under the pressures of lockdown. Within this context, it's little surprise that Mayya has cultivated a defensive mindset on stage and a strong interest in switching up his narrative. He adopts the tactic of lying to make his stories more bearable, with the added justification that most jokes are embellishments and polished half-truths anyway. An intriguing premise for a show, not least as it means that everything comes with a considerable caveat regarding its believability.
In practice, this is a bit frustrating as you find yourself buying into mitigating optimism out of habit before Mayya reveals it to be fictional, his downbeat inscrutability affording little respite. Some aspects, such as the relationship with his brother and his passing, as well as Mayya’s romantic entanglement, feel authentic at base, even if the details may not be completely accurate. Finding poignant observational truths in the grimmest subject matter, Mayya knows how to write a bleakly pithy joke. But this isn’t the easiest hour to absorb.
Aditya Mayya Pretends To Be Sad, Just The Tonic Hive, until 30 August, 4.30pm.