Comedy review: Athena Kugblenu: KMT

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Athena Kugblenu's confrontational stance is established with her show title, which stands for the Caribbean expression 'kiss mi teeth', indicating displeasure.

Underbelly Med Quad (Venue 302)

***

A smart, impassioned comic of Ghanaian-Indian parentage, she’s an informed social observer and invested cultural commentator, reflecting on gentrification, privilege, appropriation and apartheid with playfully established, forcefully concluded arguments, leaving you in no doubt where she stands.

There’s personal detail in this robust debut, too, such as the trip to Ghana that unexpectedly reaffirmed her identity and a racially profiled encounter with the police that stirred unlikely emotions. Like many Fringe newcomers, she’s perhaps guilty of chucking too much into the mix, significantly overrunning and occasionally concluding a routine with point-scoring rather than a punchline. But hers is topical, relevant stand-up, with the prickly feeling of a mixed-race woman educating a predominantly white audience about elements of black culture and even British Imperialism that they’re perhaps unfamiliar with.

Still finding her register, Kugblenu projects the sense of a performer who knows what she is trying to achieve, with plenty of potential as she hones her raw talent.

Until 27 August. Today 5:50pm.

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