JADAR

★★★★☆

Award-winning Aarian Mehrabani previews How’s Your Head? at Lowry, exploring his experiences of brain cancer, bisexuality, and Persian identity in this promising new show ahead of its Edinburgh Fringe run this summer.

How’s Your Head? is written and performed by Aarian Mehrabani, directed by Dec Munro, and commissioned and supported by Lowry through its ‘Developed With’ Artist Development Programme with additional support from Arts Council England.

Graduating from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Aarian Mehrabani co-founded the acclaimed theatre company FlawBored. Their first show, IT’S A MOTHERF**KING PLEASURE, debuted at the Vaults Festival in 2023, transferring to Soho Theatre, then taking the Edinburgh Fringe by storm, thus earning a three-week run off-Broadway and touring worldwide.

Aarian Mehrabani describes himself as a triple threat – “Brown, Blind, and Bi” – but the title barely covers it. He’s also a writer, an actor across stage and screen, and now a stand-up comedian. How’s Your Head?, his first solo show and debut stand-up hour, takes its title from the brain cancer diagnosis he received in 2024 – and, more importantly, from beating it.

Over the course of the hour, Mehrabani weaves together stories from his life with sharp, self-aware comedy. The more we learn about him, the more extraordinary his journey becomes. He has survived brain cancer, is living with a degenerative condition that’s causing him to lose his sight, and, while in remission, has created a stand-up show that’s both hilarious and deeply sincere.

Alongside his work as a performer, he consults for accessibility in the arts and workspaces; even if that sometimes means walking into rooms and, with perfectly timed sarcasm, asking, “But… have you considered the blind?”

Mehrabani says he hates tension. He uses jokes to illiminate it the moment he walks into a room, before revealing the heartbreaking truth that, as a blind person, he often feels he’s the source of that tension. He tackles his experiences of disability head-on, never shying away from the uncomfortable, presenting them with remarkable sincerity threaded through with cheeky, self-aware comedy that flattens any awkwardness before it can settle.

Yet it’s the moments where he allows the tension to linger that become the show’s most powerful. After spending the first half reflecting on sight loss, queerness and his Persian identity, a red light floods the stage as he boldly reveals that he has been diagnosed with brain cancer. He falls silent, and the room does too. The tension throbs through the audience, before Mehrabani once again finds a way to make us laugh. He controls this tension and pressure with such dexterity, looking after us throughout the journey.

How’s Your Head? feels personal and intimate. Mehrabani includes us in his anecdotes, asking for reassurance whether we had experienced the same mishaps that he had. He lets us into the innermost details of his life with each punchline. All the while, he narrates his interactions with the audience, verbally for any blind people in the room, which was quite funny in itself, showing how inclusivity and access can fit seamlessly into comedy spaces.

Mehrabani ends the show with a heartfelt moment, speaking about the process of working with Lowry, and thanking his brain surgeon, nurses, and hospital staff who saved his life and cared for him while he was sick. It’s clear that Mehrabani is going to dominate the Edinburgh Fringe once again, as this first preview performance of How’s Your Head? showed immense promise and will only grow in strength and confidence as the Fringe run goes on.

Aarian Mehrabani: How’s Your Head? runs at Lowry (Aldridge Studio) until August 1 before transferring to Underbelly George Square Bluebell from August 5 to 31 – the last stop of its UK tour.