Humour is a dish best served spicy. Irony, tongue-in-cheek, politically incorrect — Indian stand-up comics bring them all to the table. In the last few years, stand-up comedy has become so popular in Bengaluru that practically every other day there is a stand-up act in a pub or a club. The city will now see its first ever comedy festival, Bengaluru Comedy Festival, organised by Comedy Wagon. Fifty artistes from across the country, including Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, will perform 18 comedy shows across three stages. Well-known stand-up comics Radhika Vaz, Aditi Mittal, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Karthik Kumar, Sundeep Rao, Praveen Kumar, Sanjay Manaktala, Kenny Sebastian, Daniel Fernandes, Naveen Richard, The Improv, Sketch are among those who will perform.
Effortless as it may seem, stand-up is actually quite hard. “You have to work so hard, you have to show you haven’t worked at all!” says Radhika Vaz, when we spoke to her and Naveen Richard ahead of The Voice of Stray Dogs’ Barking Mad 5 event. “You have to look like you don’t care,” adds Naveen, nodding in agreement. A joke may fall flat when written, but with a live performance, there is a certain theatricality that enhances the act. “There’s a difference between writing jokes and delivering them,” says Radhika.
Naveen says sometimes repeat jokes can become stale. “Every time you perform it’s easy to get a robotic feel, which is dangerous because then the joke just dies.”
(Radhika Vaz.. Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy)
They agree that stand-up comedy has become huge in the last few years. “It’s blown up,” says Radhika, “I was much a bigger deal five years ago…which is good!” Naveen says: “Four years ago, I would do one or two shows in a month. Now I do a lot more.”
Radhika says it is the internet that has opened up stand-up comedy. After doing stand-up in New York, Radhika’s first performance in India was in Bengaluru. “I was in Bengaluru when I was younger. I have many friends here. I feel at home.”
Sumendra Singh, founder of Comedy Wagon, says Bengaluru has a discerning audience. “They always look for variety. They plan their time to watch a stand-up comedy act.” Daniel Fernandes, stand-up comic, who has played a part in the programming of the Comedy Festival says the audience in Bengaluru are very cued in, “You needn’t worry about what to or not what to include in your content. The city has had a comedy scene for four years.” He also agrees that there are varieties of comedy: “Some comedians write brilliant lines, others are very good with performance and there are some who find a middle-ground between the two.”
It takes gumption to be a successful stand-up comic, and Radhika has plenty of it. “I am a people pleaser,” she chimes. “But during the performance, you don’t care whether the audience laughs or not. Trying too hard is one thing you need to let go of.” Among her most popular shows are Unladylike and Older, Hairer, Angrier. The latter, she says, is closer to her heart. “I play myself.”
Bengaluru Comedy Festival will be held on October 10 and October 11 at UB City.
