Everything Naveen Richard does on Family Friendly Jokes for Friendly Families (And Unmarrieds Also)—or simply, for our purposes here, Family Friendly—has a faint glow of low-stakes nostalgia around it. It feels lived in. Much of it has to do with the material itself: there’s a joyful riff on those old-timey railway station weighing machines whose interactive, game-like quality made them irresistible to children. The ordeal of buying fish at the market as a young man unacquainted as yet with the ways of the world. Enthusiastic exam invigilators cramping the style of young dreamers who’ve finished the exam too early. Or, of course, by-the-numbers travel stories. In terms of the material, Richard plays it somewhat safe—his coming-of-age tales coupled with a sharp eye for the peculiarities of everyday life making for a fun, easy watch.

What elevates Family Friendly, though, is Naveen Richard the performer himself. He has a great knack of being able to insert himself into the stories—excitable, flawed, just a little bit weird; no different than the rest of the characters we witness here. He’s as curious about what’s going to happen next as we, the viewers, are. And so these are stories we experience through Richard. Stylistically, plenty of comedians tend to speak of the world from a distance. They situate themselves at a vantage point—not necessarily a position of superiority, just geography—and are able to articulate with great wit and clarity the oddities of modern society. The comedian, there, becomes a surrogate for the audience. In contrast, Richard positions himself inside the world he builds, right in the thick of things. He’s not aloof, he’s an active participant.

The crowd gets to experience his observations in real time, the lack of distance preventing the possibility of cynicism creeping in. This is particularly evident when he’s doing impressions, accents, and voices: they’re never quite polished or exactly accurate, always tinged with Richard’s own desi affect. Rather, it’s an impression of a guy doing impressions. Richard is unafraid of bringing these design flaws to the surface, perhaps leaning on his impressive acting chops and sketch comedy background in these slapstick moments. He’s willing to play the fool, the unselfconscious court jester, in service of the joke. It all makes for a very effortless rapport with the viewer, who gets a set stripped of those deliberate affectations that artists sometimes fall prey to. He’s naturally funny in his theatrical, goofball delivery, and he’s allowing that quality to come through.

He’s willing to play the fool, the unselfconscious court jester, in service of the joke.

There’s that other thing too that sets this special apart. Richard doesn’t curse. Like at all. Not even an accidental fffu or shh. The material has a clean, ‘U’ rating universality to it, never edging close to any adult, salacious, or offensive themes. It’s carefree, family-friendly fun; the kind of jokes that kids laugh hysterically to (even when they don’t fully get it), and uncles guffaw begrudgingly at. How stupid are young people, moving their phones further away to get a better picture of…the moon? How silly Indians sound when we say “mate”, unlike the Aussies he encounters on his travel adventures. Everything is above-board. No culture wars are being fought on the battlefield that is Richard’s stage.

This, as I understand, is a consequence of Naveen Richard finding comfort in religion in the past few years. He has spoken of this shift in his worldview with great lucidity in interviews, detailing how a conversation with his mum during the early COVID lockdowns led him to the Bible, kickstarting a rewarding journey of faith and introspection.

His personal faith is his own, of course, and it’s not a subject he’s presenting to the audience on Family Friendly. There’s no mention of religion or belief systems or who he was before this period in the set. However, to viewers, it perhaps explains the creative direction of this special, and how it differs in spirit to his previous work. Richard was never overtly vulgar or offensive in the past—relatively speaking—and so the shift is not quite jarring. But, like many of his peers, he did rely on foul language and profanities to embellish a punchline, to seek an easy laugh when there might not have been one to be had.

Those tendencies have been purged from his repertoire now. The throwaway, exaggerated curse word, the subtle insinuation between the lines, the clever innuendo, it’s all gone. And it’s no great loss as such. Sure, there are points where the audience is deprived of moments of guilty pleasure—where, for instance, the comic says something horrible and everyone in the crowd does an “ooOOooh!” of faux-disgust—but, structurally, the absence fosters a greater engagement with Richard’s observational comedy, one that is perhaps more rewarding for both comedian and audience.

No culture wars are being fought on the battlefield that is Richard’s stage.

There are missteps here, no doubt, for one the protracted story at the end about Richard finding himself in the middle of nowhere on a trek in Australia, spooked by the country’s bespoke animals lurking around him. And a lot of the material draws on classic comedy tropes that, while always good for a laugh, don’t have much staying power for the viewer. But a refreshingly breezy energy runs through this special, and it serves as a compelling jumping off point for greater comic discoveries he can make through his work. It’s a brave new world for Naveen Richard, an uncertain one as yet, but with endless possibilities ahead of him.

Full special here: