Could Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa be the definition of cool? I think he might be.
I first discovered Vidura through videos recommended to me by Instagram. The unusually calm and collected delivery of this stylish Sri Lankan man stood out among the general franticness of that platform. He spoke penetratingly about racism. With a twinkle in his eye. The comments were full of people also seeing him for the first time, and mostly gushed about his looks. “I was too distracted by gazing at him to take in anything he said” – that sort of thing. Others compared him to Jesus – he has the long hair and beard – and said he could easily start a cult.
When I saw that he was coming to Brighton Comedy Festival with a preview of his new show, Paradise Gothic, I jumped at the chance.
As in the recorded shows online, Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa was effortlessly suave. Unusually for ‘stand-up comedy’, he remains seated – leaning back in his chair and in his jokes, skewering the tired tropes of modern discourse with a languor that’s mesmerising and that actually adds power to his words. Vidura has lived in multiple countries, including the US, Malaysia, Germany and now the UK, and in Paradise Gothic his experiences become a prism refracting keen insights into immigration and global capitalism. The audience laughter, which is frequent and occasionally ascends into whoops and cheers, comes when Vidura uses a delightful turn of phrase to cast an idea in a bold new light. Being bullied in a predominantly people-of-colour school in the US “Not for the colour of my skin, but for the content of my character, like Dr King would have wanted”, and moving back to Sri Lanka “so I could learn English” produced hysterical laughter.
Other canny insights slipped by less obtrusively. The observation of apathy towards foreigners being a sign of prosperity, the idea of high-functioning depression only being something that could exist under capitalism – “I’m sad, but I’m not a loser!” The Third World middle class being “the worst people in the world” – the types of people who have mediocre cars with blown out windows that they still employ a driver to drive. Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa is absolutely not pandering to anyone. He could start a cult, but he could also start the revolution – one of the most powerful parts of the set involved Vidura imagining working class white rioters teaming up with immigrants to fight the rich. “You know the culture, we know the language. You be in the trenches, we’ll cater.”
The UK is a country that needs an outsider’s eye in order to really see itself. This astute immigrant with the bohemian glamour of a rock star is an astonishingly bold and refreshing voice on the comedic and cultural scene. Five stars. *****
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Website: brightondome.org.
