Review: Out of Bounds at Brockley Jack Studio 22 July – 2 August 2025

'performer Jason Sardinha is engaging and personable'★★★ ½

In an epoch when comedians like Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, cutting their teeth in sketch shows and stand-up routines, are fêted as great actors; an epoch in which half the new novels published, and most of the novels that sell out their initial print-run, seem to be written as a side-hustle by comedians; it is unsurprising that stand-up techniques infuse dramatic presentations. Particularly this applies to solo shows with a single performer presenting multiple characters, and since solo performances are the cheapest dramas to stage, that represents an awful lot of new drama.

Because it’s a familiar trope, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The essence of the technique is to soothe the audience with well honed observational comedy schtick, and then deliver a surprise twist by hitting a serious note, maybe political, maybe biographical. It works. There are many well-regarded plays on the fringe that do exactly that, that introduce the character’s abusive past, racist relatives, sexual confusion, out of the laugh-riot that had occupied the audience’s attention. Out of Bounds by Rajesh Gopie attempts this on a grand scale.

The solo performer, Jason Sardinha, populates the stage with aunties and uncles, cousins and school-chums, parents and grandparents, all living and feuding in an Indian community in Apartheid South Africa. The community is housed in the Phoenix Settlement outside Durban, an ashram founded by Gandhi while he lived in South Africa, but this doesn’t impinge much on the narrator Lall. He grows up there, and notes its destruction by Zulu rioters in the 1980s, but what he wants to talk about is his family. His family are all characters. Jason Sardinha represents them with minimal props and well-chosen physical markers as he charts his personal development, heavily coached to violently resist affronts, acquiring agency, leaving South Africa to tour the world.

The problem with the piece is that the comedy is not all that funny, and the introduction of heavier issues is far too glancing. There are allusions to Indian attitudes towards the black population, of inter-ethnic violence, of the weight of apartheid on any South African with brown skin, but none of these subjects are explored with any vigour, the narrator is largely indifferent to them or their consequences, and most of his anger is directed at his parents, especially his father. It feels like a badly wasted opportunity. Lall’s fondness for Bollywood and disco, his faltering approaches to girls who catch his eye, these things are well drawn. The destruction of the Phoenix Settlement, out of which Lall’s family barely escaped with the clothes they stood up in, is noted in passing. Maybe that’s because Lall was very small at the time, but Lall the adult narrator has ample space to reflect.

Jason Sardinha is engaging and personable, the stage set is effective, there are laughs, but the heavy-weight subjects alluded to don’t get enough attention or explanation, and that is a substantial loss.

Out of Bounds

written by Rajesh Gopie

presented by Shooting Star Studios

Tuesday 22nd July – Saturday 2nd August at 7.30pm

Press night: Thursday 24th July at 7.30pm

Box Office https://brockleyjack.co.uk/