Good doses of laughter

As part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Bangalore edition of national open mic comedy competition ‘RAW Comedy 2014’ was held at the Biere Club recently.

It was a laugh riot with 13 comedians in the house, including Australian comedians Justin Hamilton and Kate McLennan who played host.

The national finale will take place in Delhi and the winner will get an opportunity to participate at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in Australia.

The Australian duo were a pleasant lot, cracking all sorts of jokes on their experiences in India so far — from getting scammed on the road to random people taking their photographs for having blonde hair.

Racial comments and picking on the audience members, a regular feature at any stand-up comedy show, were also witnessed in heavy doses.

Eleven local comedians participated in the competition and took the crowd through a variety of funny routines, some of which were brutally humorous and borderline offensive while the milder ones poked fun at subjects like Bangalore potholes and being married.

Other subjects included Modern saas bahu serials, Punjabi women, arranged marriages, Indian porn and Facebook needing a ‘Respect’ button.

Vamsidhar B, whose hilarious routine about children on trains singing Pardesi Pardesi and other anomalies of life helped him win the Bangalore round, was ecstatic after the show.

“It feels really fabulous and I hope that I get to perform in Australia. I didn’t expect to win but stand-up collective ‘The Polished Bottoms’ deserve the credit because those guys there helped me develop my set. I didn’t think that the South Indian jokes would get through but even those did!” he shared.

Asked why the judges picked him as the winner, Kate said, “We loved the way Vamsidhar danced and sang and balanced the humour. He was very sophisticated in his writing and we laughed despite not getting the references completely. There’s a strong culture
of physical humour back home and he had that going for him.”

The audience comprised of the young and old who were thoroughly entertained. “I was expecting it to be terrible but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of jokes. It ended up being a really fun evening and I had a great laugh!” said Johnson, an audience member who was picked on for his ‘World War II moustache’.

Comedian Sundeep Rao, who was in the crowd, added, “Comedy can’t be judged because it’s a personal opinion and choice of expression. But Vamsidhar’s damn good at this and he’s going places for sure!”