Review: Bilal Zafar: Care

A big hearted show about the comedian's year working in a care home

★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
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Bilal Zafar
Photo by Leslie Byron Pitt
Published 12 Aug 2022

With no live audiences to play for, many stand-ups turned to platforms like Twitch during the unprecedented lockdown of 2020. When it came to streaming, few had the ingenuity of Bilal Zafar. The mild-mannered stand-up coaxed a soap-opera style drama out of Pro Evolution Soccer’s Master League mode, giving back stories and personality traits to a computer generated motley crew of international athletes. Niche, but brilliantly imaginative.

On today’s evidence Zafar doesn’t have quite the same confidence on stage as he does on screen. He takes time to get going, and there’s some stilted back and forth with some latecomers. But he settles in, and Care – the story of his year working for minimum wage looking after the elderly – reveals itself to be a big hearted show, delivered with a laid back charisma that releases itself slowly into the audience.

He has a natural gift with strange detail (a posh cat with a deep voice, a breadstick used in place of a cigarette) but the guts of the show is grounded in cold harsh reality, in his recollections of debt collectors, dementia patients, and in the highs and lows of his relationship with Barry, a resident of the care home. The two’s friendship is beautifully, subtly rendered. It’s a relationship that lingers in your mind long after the show, and maybe there’s an age gap bromance comedy-drama for Zafar to explore further. For now, we have a touching Fringe hour that shows Zafar is a comedian with pathos to spare as well as conceptual chops.