English stand-up is at an interesting cultural crossroads where it is still niche enough to be considered edgy and cool but without the mainstream acceptance, financial backing and familiarity of say music, or dance. After the year 2003, which saw the perfect storm of Indian television broadcasting, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, with urban Indians finding an outlet of expression after watching Russell Peters explode on YouTube and bars opening up to accommodating newer art forms, English stand-up got on its first legs of cultural relevance. Ten years in, with comics having struggled to build and educate their own audiences, English stand-up has become a regular part of life in an Indian metropolis (Except Kolkata where the Usha Uthup lobby has prevented anything except Naxals from entering).
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From a time when a handful of comedians had to beg bar owners and auditoriums for a stage, cities are now full of comedians, open mic-ers who have performed once and call themselves comedians, and people who are funny on Twitter and hence think they’re comedians. Everyone has identified stand-up as an opportunity to make money while few care about the passion that has gone behind building this industry. Through this post, I want to share with you the different kind of organisers and promoters an English stand-up comic meets in his day-to-day life.
1. The Hapless Bar Owner
The hapless bar owner is perhaps the more pathetic of the organisers. Usually made familiar of English stand-up comedy after seeing a competitor organise a show, the bar owner thinks that all it really takes to organise a show is a mic, some lights and a guy who owns an Ahuja sound console to get people to automatically start streaming into that venue as if Mata Amritanandamayi were giving away free hugs. The phone call usually goes like this.
Hapless bar owner: Hi, is this comedian X? Actually, I got your number from someone and we were interested in doing some stand-up comedy at our venue.
Comic: Nice. So where is this place? Is it a restaurant or a bar? What dates are you looking at? How many comics? What’s the budget like?
Hapless bar owner: Errr… actually you know budgets are really tight so we don’t really have much to offer comics… but we can give you exposure… like we have connections in media and you’ll get exposure… (What are you a frickin’ nuclear power plant?)
Comic: No see, without budgets it will be tough because no one does it for free… what kind of promotion can you do to get people so we can organise some sort of gate-split?
Hapless bar owner: Actually, we were thinking you are on Twitter and Facebook so you can tweet…
At this stage, that bar is permanently black-listed while the comedian cries realising that his/her value is lower than that of an emcee in a mall shouting to people to get them enter a lucky draw contest. If the hapless bar owner does manage to con some open mic-ers who are desperate for stage time into performing, s/he does fantastic things like let the bar and food service be open through the performance so that the comic can’t hear himself over the chicken shaslik sizzler. The hapless bar owner then decides that stand-up isn’t worth it and goes back to generic events like “Bollywood Nightzzz with DJ Bunty”.
2. The Facebook Acquaintance
Given English stand-up’s novelty, being a relatively good comedian gets you at least one article in the press. That and constantly updating ones Facebook with show details also means most of your friends and acquaintances know that you do that thing where you humiliate yourself on stage for the entertainment of strangers. Thus, most people like to take advantage of this fact and invite you to perform at their weddings and birthday parties. These acquaintances are usually easier to deal with than bar owners and the conversation goes like this.
Acquaintance you barely remember: Hey man what’s up! Aur show vagera kaise chal rahe hain?
Comic: Nothing much man same old, same old..
Acquaintance you barely remember: Nice nice. Achha… I was saying… you know, I have this party coming up and I thought I’d invite you – everyone will be there and we haven’t caught up in ages!
Comic: Haan! Sure man that’d be great…
Acquaintance you barely remember: Accha also, you know I was thinking… we can have this stage where you can tell some jokes you know on everyone in the room just do like a quick three hours of jokes we don’t have a budget but this party will give you exposure…
(click)
As Raju Srivastava once said, even if you’re on a dance floor, you’re always afraid that any moment, DJ Bunty (who never got paid by the hapless bar owner and is now doing weddings) would announce your name and the whole room would clear expecting you to do a one-hour set.
3. Corporate Slaves
And finally, the corporate slaves. These are company employees on the lookout for “something funny” to be done at their annual award function, Diwali bash, or lets -just-suck-our-boss’-dick-for-no-reason party. The corporate slave is usually a mid-level executive who has been put in charge of the event and thus, needs it to go well for the sake of his/her career.
While a few slaves hire specific comics based on their preferences, most are not familiar with who the comics are till the first time they meet them “to touch base”. After “touching base” they like to discuss the “show flow” and see how the comic can help punch up a supposedly-witty, god-awful sketch that involves every junior employee of the company, in front of senior management.
Finally, the corporate slave who thinks he/she knows comedy much better than the comic drops the inevitable censorship bomb, i.e. please don’t talk about politics, religion or sex – leaving nothing else to talk about except stickers on fruits, dog shampoos and Roadies. The slave goes home with a feeling of having accomplished something major for their company while the comic hopes to one day reach a stage where selling ones soul isn’t part of the contract.
The fat wad of money made at the said event then feeds the comics’ alcohol binge because that’s the only way to get over a room full of suits that can’t laugh because images of the partition are fresh in their memories.
The worst part of being a comedian isn’t so much the writing material, honing it over months, getting over stage fright and not getting shot by hecklers in Gurgaon. It’s having to deal with people at the periphery of the industry that seem to have it all figured out. Luckily, comics have a lot more options in the form of television and Bollywood nowadays, and I hear they provide great exposure.
