Edinburgh Fringe: Vapelord review – Jamali Maddix casts a disgruntled eye over society, possibly for the last time

It would be a real shame if his on-stage claim to be retiring from standup is true, because his point of view is fresh and his set was honest and enjoyable

A gifted and easily warmed-to comic who blends anecdotes from his time on Vice’s ‘Hate Thy Neighbour’ with sharp and speedy audience interaction (James Deacon)

“I get a lot of abuse about Islam for a guy who isn’t even Muslim,” says Jamali Maddix, shaking his head, and while it’s true the bushy black beard he wears might fulfil a Muslim stereotype for many, the can of lager in his hand cancels it out again. Yet the abuse is something he’s developed a thick skin for – as the host of Vice’s Hate Thy Neighbour series, the comedian from Essex has made a job for the last couple of years out of, as he puts it, “travelling the world meeting Nazis and acting surprised when I find out they don’t like me”.

Maddix was a Buddhist at one point, he says, but that position doesn’t seem so fixed now. In which case he’s perfectly positioned to cast the same disgruntled eye over society as the likes of Hicks or Stanhope, but without the white male perspective which we’ve become used to. He declares himself too annoyed about almost everything for even a terrorist organisation to keep up with, telling us his first jihad would take place because of his hatred of cats: “Brits forgave Germany quicker than the lady who put a cat in a bin,” he tuts.

He’s a gifted and easily warmed-to standup, who blends anecdotes from his time on Hate Thy Neighbour – how to reason with those who issue online death threats, for example, or what to do if you’re a Jamaican-English man whose producer has just told you to get in the moshpit at a neo-Nazi punk gig in eastern Europe – with sharp and speedy audience interaction. “That’s some white man judo, flip it back so it’s my fault,” he shoots back with a smile at one guy up the front who looks mildly unhappy to be singled out.

When he tells us, however, that there will be no more Hate Thy Neighbour and that he’s done with standup after this tour, it’s hard to tell whether it’s concocted misanthropy or whether he really does mean it; on the night we saw him his spilled beer seemed to throw him off track for a moment, and the recovery was smooth but his continuing annoyance with the slip seemed palpable. It would be a real shame if that were so, because his point of view is fresh and the rest of his set was honest and enjoyable.

Monkey Barrel Comedy Club, until Sunday 26 August (excluding 13 August)