By Lisa Clark
There are no bells and whistles. No props, no soundscape, just Jin, his mic and his voice. Having walked around the room gently asking “Are you OK?” to all his seated audience members as more entered (and it was PACKED!) Jin opens with “I was walking through a forest…” and off he goes and doesn’t let up.
Jin is not one to tell long form funny stories or to try to find meaning in his life through comedy, Swimming In A Submarine is all jokes, jokes, jokes. He tells short stories and jokes that seem to be about one thing but turn out to be about something else, it’s all about misdirect and surprise. There’s no political point or message, Jin talks a lot about various kinds of animals and dream sequences and imagining scenarios like joining the yakuza, often seeming to gently meander and then will surprise with a punchy U-turn.
Jin can be quite aggressive with his crowd work, tending to use the crowd work as a sort of sounding board rather than a genuine part of the show. But the jokes keep rolling and the audience loves him. Quite a few of his jokes are broken up and sprinkled throughout the show but there is no overarching theme. Other jokes teeter on the edge of distasteful or rude but he gets away with them with a cheeky grin.
It’s not surprising that Jin was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival, Swimming In A Submarine is packed with jokes and his audience is packed to the rafters with laughing punters.
Jin Hao Li performs Swimming In A Submarine at The Chinese Museum until April 18