I approached Shazia Mirza's 'Coconut' with anticipation; my friends have seen shows with her before and highly recommended, however being myself a British Asian and indeed wannabe comic, I am wary of the stereotypical asian jokes that are often commonplace within the asian comedy circuit. However I was hopeful that Shazia, with her credentials including one of the BBC’s 100 women of 2013, and winner of Best Stand-Up tour, would be a cut above the rest. I was not disappointed; Shazia incorporated culture in some of the jokes but not in a way that took over the show- she avoided some of the cliches that are often seen in this medium.

She has a knack for combining storytelling and comedy rather than just one liner fast laughs. She reeled the audience in to get them really interested-for example, we were all really keen to find out what happened when she met the Queen-she kept the attention well throughout each joke segment. It was interesting to hear mor about her life and get an insight to her as a person - I had no idea she has been on a Bear Grylls show and indeed that she is quite a high profile celebrity!

It was a small audience, which can be tricky, but Shazia did well in holding the show despite this. It would have been good to have more audience participation- often this can be the most hilarious part of the evening, but perhaps the smaller group didn’t lend itself to this well. One stand-out point for me was that she didn't rely on bad language to accentuate the laughs- it can be a bit crude when swearing is used to gain quick jokes- and she did avoid this in most part. A handful of the jokes may have been a little crude for the crowd, but overall was well balanced.

Some of the anecdotes were admittedly a little predictable, for example some of the reference to religion, but overall I feel that Shazia has demonstrated that she can go beyond the more commonplace joke materials- it would be great to see more comedic material from asian comedians in general that doesn’t revolve around their ethnicity.

A special mention to the introductory act - the comedian who did warm-up, Tommy Sandhu, had me in hysterics with his audience banter.

Overall worth watching-particularly in the comfortable surroundings of Cornerstone- great staff, good bar, and good vibes all round. A very enjoyable evening!