Bilal Zafar has a low-key manner that doesn’t demand attention like some other comedians, instead allowing the jokes to speak for themselves and blending them into his anecdotal recollections of working at a care home after getting a degree in media studies.
Zafar gets a lot of laughs out of admitting that the job involved far too much responsibility than he had as an inexperienced 21-year-old graduate, whilst also noting that he was getting paid minimum wage for looking after wealthy residents. However, it’s in his descriptions of his relationships with the individual residents that Zafar’s stories really come into their own, combining humour with pathos as they highlight the difficulties of caring for them, with the residents’ own idiosyncrasies.
Stories such as talking down a resident armed with a mug and moderating a Scrabble game fall under the more overtly humorous category, while others, such as Zafar having to counsel a suicidal woman and his relationship with a seriously-ill Jewish resident, reveal a more somber side to Zafar’s job and provide a sense of dimensionality to his material.
Care isn’t a loud, broadly comic show filled with wall-to-wall gags. However, it provides an interesting and humorous insight into working at a care home. Zafar wins the audience over easily with his laid-back stage presence and delivery, which makes him stand out among other comedians at the Fringe. See this if you are interested in amicable storytelling from a likeable performer.