In the world of bloopers

Jokes apart

An onstage goofup is every performer’s worst nightmare — be it a dancer, a singer, a theatrician or even a standup comedian. Welcome to the world of misfired jokes and one-liners which didn’t click with the audience. Standup artistes in the city share experiences when a joke didn’t work onstage and how they handled the situation.

Sneha Suhas, a comedian, says that open-mic nights stand witness to many such instances when a joke doesn’t click. “What I think is funny sometimes isn’t the same for the crowd. On other times, I get an overwhelming laugh for something which, according to me, was a mediocre joke. When a joke doesn’t make people laugh, I rewrite the joke or deliver it differently,” she says.

Usually when a line misfires, Sneha jokes about how that joke didn’t work and moves on. “The audience knows I tried and they too laugh at that time,” she adds.

Comedians like Sumukhi Suresh say that ‘Improv’ comes in handy when a joke doesn’t take off. “When a joke doesn’t click, I ask them, ‘What were you expecting from a 29-year-old unmarried girl?’ Or I immediately start moving on the stage, talk a bit louder and do some crowd work and then leave,” says Sumukhi. She often makes a political ‘Haryana’ joke and mostly gets a laugh for it. “But sometimes it just doesn’t work. And then I tell them I wonder why I resorted to comedy in the first place,” she says with a laugh.

Even the most popular ones in the circuit have gone through an onstage failure or had their share of goofups. Standup comedian Praveen Kumar says, “Every comedian goes through this. There is not one artiste in the circuit who hasn’t faced such a situation. For example, when it’s a corporate show, an announcement is made saying ‘The next act is by standup comedian Praveen Kumar and the bar is now open.’ This is the ‘least calculated time’ ever in eternity. Only five percent of the crowd sticks around and this is the most awkward situation for an artiste.”

Technological errors are part and parcel of every show and Praveen says that he has recuperated from many such instances. “But the worst is when a joke backfires. I have many husband-wife jokes and sometimes the wives crowd me after a show, asking why I make jokes only on wives. And I reply, ‘Well, that’s because I only have a wife. I’ll leave the men-bashing jokes to the ladies.’ Then the worst is when people don’t laugh. The only way out is to immediately move on to the next one and leave the audience thinking,” he says.

Standup artiste Kritarth Srinivasan says that there are times when a joke is highly appreciated by one crowd while another crowd goes ‘Oh!’ on hearing it. “I was performing for the employees of an MNC and I made this joke about how I don’t believe in facewash and shampoo advertisements. I highlighted a product and then suddenly the audience started booing at me. That’s when I realised that the product was made by this company,” says Kritarth. He adds, “I immediately changed the product name and named another one, but the booing continued. Finally, I just told them, ‘I give up. You guys make everything.’ And they laughed and we moved on,” he says.
Forgetting one’s lines at a performance is a faux pas that keeps happening with onstage artistes, says comic artiste Shrirupa Sengupta. “This can be a weird experience so when this happens, I just move on to the next bit,” she says.
Jokes that don’t work are a struggle that every comic artiste faces. “I had this part about travelling from Mumbai to Bengaluru in a KSRTC bus and how the bus played the worst movies. By the end of the trip, I got down as soon as the bus hit Bengaluru. The moment I made this joke, some people at the counter got offended. Some comments from the audience went out of proportion and I didn’t see it coming. But I just moved on with the gig,” she says.