Ludlow Fringe Festival 2019
The Dark Side of Harun
Harun Musho'd
Genre: Stand-Up
Venue: The Sitting Room at the Blue Boar, Ludlow
Festival: Ludlow Fringe Festival
Low Down
In these turbulent political times it could be too easy to raise satire from current events but Harun Musho’d does not drop a note as he brings an insider’s view of politics from the corridors of Westminster where his day job is a Human Resources manager. The inherent humour of that role is not lost on him.
Review
By establishing where the political mood of the room lies (with his first audience participation) we are all put at ease that the show will serve our tastes. And so it does as he weaves his delicate way through the vacillations of the characters in public life bringing us daily doses of painful humour. Harun Musho’d introduces us to his eccentric ethnic background – English, Sri Lankan and Swiss (with a sprinkling of Nazi Germany in an uncle who was a member of the SS) and guides us through a miasma of intrigue around the naming of things. Ludlow itself deconstructed to Loud Water, and Harun explaining with some sobering reflection that this own name meaning Lucky Warrior was almost exactly the moniker chosen by the Westminster stabber Khalid Masood whose actions led to Musho’d being locked into a pub around the corner, unable to return to his desk. As these tales unfolded at confident speed it was left to us to muse on their significance only after his hour was up.
Even with material handed to him on a plate as it were, (where reading out transcripts of Donald Trump’s speeches being a joke in itself), this was no carefree show. Significance piled up – he and his now Conspiracy Theory-fuelled brother not going on a promised visit to the Tower of London as children because they both had measles on the day that the Tower was bombed by the IRA, leads Musho’d to suppose that anti-vaccination actually saved his life.
By engaging the audience early on with a few choice questions aimed at us to test our knowledge of obscure figures from history – born on the same day as his – meant that further engagement was welcome and proved insightful. One of the audience on declaring that he was American but lived in Argentina was explained by the mere mention of Trump. Musho’d was eager to include that little gem in further shows!
Nicely realised stream of consciousness musing which could have been simply a rant but was skilfully held to bring more thought than rancour to this entertaining evening.
