Just the tonic at the Tron
Aug 21, 22 – 25, 26 – 28, 19.40
Downstairs at Just the tonic at the Tron was a little room set to host Aliya Kanani’s ‘ Where you from, from’. She came out looking ready for a show with a great grin on her face. She told us some background, after warming up with some jiving reiterating jokes about faux pas and social taboos. The seating was all low stools so we had time to settle in with each other and get to the heart of proceedings headed by a giddiness and manoeuvred with stirs of laughter and enjoyment.
The persona she created was based on herself as an air stewardess; she proudly listed places she had been that crossed all of the oceans I think. When she was younger she felt a need to escape her Muslim upbringing, as she refused to be censored in any way, especially on the subject of sex.
Continuing her grin she lapped up the stage and the room, putting on a show and a face on things with admiring detail, and eased into a kind of forgetfulness and how to celebrate it. She was willing and able to get down and giggy with it confessing she was a huge fan of Hip Hop, having grown up in the nineties when hip hop had its original rough appearance, and popularity.
We soaked in her well travelled rays as she bigged up travelling in life, how amazingly well it has worked for her. Then she hit us with her skit about encounters had on planes especially when passengers are filling the seats, to cut it short sometimes people can be complete morons. I think she learned her smile and how she carried herself on stage directly from her career experience and it worked out very well as a good laugh in the fiery world of stand up.
She was right on about many things, when her smile turned to a more earnest expression of sincerity about making sure you live free and up to the dreams you may dare to make while on this planet (for her very much a stage).
She was lively and livened up the attentive crowd who were in an atmosphere somewhere between star bucks and Broadway (or was it Simon and Garfunkel at Central Park). She invited us to appreciate things like travel, and the mood of the room moved by with a lot of twisted punch lines of sniggeri ng jokes, building sand castles and knocking them down with the same stroke.
How can someone so well of appearance, grace and charm tell such jokes that suddenly five hours later you in an instant get causing you to laugh out loud in the middle of cueing for Asda to the dismay of fellow shoppers around you. This comedienne’s easy appearance took to telling jokes with a whole chapter to delve into, a charming wit with headline punch lines.
Daniel Donnelly
Mumble Comedy 