VARUN THAKUR, VIPUl GOYal and SANJAY MANAKTAlA will make you laugh your lungs out at the Blue Frog on June 28. They are a part of the forthcoming show by The Comedy Store and they give IKNOOR KAUR an insight into their droll world
Putting up an act together
Starting off as an actor and currently balancing his comedy centric lifestyle with showbiz, Varun Thakur said he needs humour to keep him sane. “There is no better high than making people laugh. It keeps you happy and balanced,” he added. With his recent film Jab Tak Hai Jaan, the young actor and comedian feels that his life would be incomplete without drama. Telling us about his pattern in stand-up shows, he said that he likes to internalise his jokes and involve the audience. Being from Mumbai, he definitely prefers the venue for performing, but he feels that Delhi carries with it a different vibe which makes it comfortable for him to perform.
According to him the biggest nightmare for any comedian is a bad audience. “We deal with audiences who will not listen to you if they don’t like you. So it is important to interact with them,” he said. In addition he felt that the best way to get the audience attention is to make fun of things they hate.
He said, “Mumbai hates Delhi so I’m always cracking jokes on Delhi when I’m in Mumbai but here I tell my audience all they want to know about Mumbai. So if Delhi wants to laugh at Mumbai, come to my show.”
A dose of life
After slogging all the way through IIT, Vipul went onto being a retail analyst and an HR consultant. Now he is a stand-up comedian. “Corporate jobs are really boring. I did a few acts when I was in college too and I knew that this is what I want to do,” he said. Picking on Gods, dads, marriages and relationships, he likes to give the audience a dose of their own lives. He feels that unless he gives them something they connect to, they will not cooperate.
Vipul likes to have a young audience that understands today’s Westernised system. He said, “The youth are the best audience. They get the jokes and understand the context better.” His views on women doing stand-up shows were, “Women can touch on sensitive issues and get away with it.” He strongly believes that in India people value stand-up comedians only when they pay to watch them. “When people don’t pay to watch you perform live, they don’t care. Till the time they don’t listen to us, how do we entertain them,” he added.
His days in India
Coming all the way from los Angeles, Sanjay feels that he is taking full advantage of the Indian comic scenario. “India has diverse crowd which gives me a chance to come up with more jokes and I love doing that,” he said. Calling Mumbai crowd more English oriented than Delhi, he said that his focus on Friday would primarily be on Punjabis and North Indian families. “I’m terrible at impersonations so I have to work really hard in order to make the audience feel comfortable,” he said adding that Delhi provides for a more interactive and entertaining crowd. He likes picking on people in the audience in order to get familiar with them. He said, “I like to observe and people enjoy spontaneity. I like to spend few minutes in getting to know the crowd.”
He is waiting to ‘hear the best Delhi had to shout at him.’ In case you have plans to interrupt him, beware, you can be the subject of his jokes!