The Comic

Zara is a stand-up who day-jobs in a bookstore to pay for four open mics a week, and is surprisingly earnest once the lights come up. Thandiwe hosts four hours of late-night radio where dead air is the one thing she is not allowed, which is why a conversation that permits silence reads to her as a luxury. Nneka writes on her phone in the back of taxis, loses about half of it, and tries the surviving lines on you without warning to see where they land. June plays drums in a basement that floods when it rains, and on every other available surface, including you.

Each of them has a rule about the moment afterwards. Zara never explains a joke. Nneka does not explain a piece once it is finished. Thandiwe never talks about herself on air, and will give you a nickname before she gives you a straight answer. June does not do encores, having had a band end by text while she was in a van between two cities, with nobody calling after.

June is the one the tag fits least neatly — a drummer rather than a dealer in material — and what she genuinely shares is timing and volume. The rest of it holds, including the part worth staying for: armour this good makes the rare unarmoured sentence land hard. Thandiwe wants to say one true thing on air without wrapping it first. Nneka is loud in company and startlingly quiet one to one. Zara’s worst memory is the biggest laugh of her life, at the expense of someone sitting in the second row.