Hilarious theories take centre stage

Witty Acts

The auditorium at Alliance Francaise resonated with laughter at ‘evam Stand-up Tamasha’, which recently took place in the City.

 Three comedians from Chennai — Karthik Kumar, S Aravind and Bala Kumaran — and Bangalore’s very own Naveen Richard gave the audience a great time.

As part of their three-city ‘WTF Tour’, an acronym for ‘Worstu Theories & Facts’, the show saw the comedians present groundbreaking theories on everything, ranging from daily incidents to radically philosophical ones. 

The theme made for some interesting, often bizarre humour, with theories on ‘Master Chef and the evolution of civilisation’ and Indian sports to name a few. 

   The format was simple and effective — each comedian had up to 20 minutes to perform their set of originally written jokes.
 Naveen Richard, for instance, spoke about his failed attempts at cooking, drew comparisons between content on television these days to that of yesteryear Tamil films and even joked about the love for alcohol among certain communities which makes them ensure the presence of an open bar even during a baby’s baptism. 

   “I got a pretty good response. I touched upon different themes since I didn’t have ‘theories’ unlike the others. 90 per cent of my material worked because they were general jokes. With the other ten per cent, I wasn’t sure — there were people who came after the show and said that they got the jokes but wondered why nobody else found it funny,” says Naveen. 

On his association with ‘evam’, he adds, “I grew up wanting to be like Mr Bean and make people laugh but I didn’t know how. Stand-up comedy is the available profession to do that. With that in mind, ‘evam’ has really been great for me. It’s the best way to vent my creativity.”

Bhargav Ramakrishnan, the director of the performance, notes, “Internationally, comics don’t have directors. But our movement is different because the performers aren’t established but began their journey in stand-up comedy with us. We’re worked with them and helped them develop their stand-up persona using our theatrical backgrounds.”

Asked about the response to the show, he replies, “I think Bangalore has woken up to stand-up comedy in the last months. It’s a great audience to perform to.”