Laugh out loud
Rajneesh Kapoor
To tickle your funny bone, stand-up comedian Rajneesh Kapoor has got together with a few of his friends for a show called Rajneesh & Friends. The show would see 10-minute comedy acts by Abijit Ganguly, Appurv Gupta, Jeeveshu Ahluwalia, Neeti Palta, Nishant Tanwar, Rajneesh Kapoor and Vasu Primlani.
Rajneesh says that amid so many stand-up comic acts happening in the city, this one stands out because some of the funniest comics of Delhi are going to present their best material. “Each comic has only 10 minutes to do the best lines before the next comic runs in to the mic to keep the momentum going,” says Rajneesh to whom the idea of presenting only a 10-minute show from each individual came from his own experiences.
He says that after the first 10 minutes, the pace becomes slow. “That has happened with me. I thought of conceptualising a show where one needs to perform only till the time the fun remains intact,” he says.
However, moving on to the serious stuff, Rajneesh talks about the business of stand-up comedy that has seen a tremendous rise in the last few years. He says that the serious business of English stand-up comedy started in India during 2009. “It’s almost like the country was waiting for it. We didn’t have anything new. Our economy was doing well and people had money to spend. People enjoyed good humour too. But back then, there was no platform. The least one could do that time was log in to Youtube.com and watch one or two well-known stand-up comedians of the West. But the humour wasn’t Indian. Looking at the demand, people like me started that time. In the next few years it’s going to see a boom,” says Rajneesh.
He says that only few like Vir Das were holding the forte then. “Of course, there were people like Raju Srivastava and others who were quite famous in Hindi stand-up scene. But then the audience of English are different.”
While Rajneesh confesses that he is a big fan of some of the Hindi comics, he thinks the context of Hindi comedy is very different from English. “In Hindi, one can do great stuff on Mata Ki Chowki, but the English audience doesn’t really go to a Mata Ki Chowki and thus they would be more interested in The Dark Knight Rises, relationships and other things.”
He thinks this is just the beginning of the business of comedy, as most of the people who are doing comedy are still learning.
Rajneesh, who has written comic strips for newspapers, says that despite knowing how to write the funny lines, he had to learn a lot. “For presenting a show, one needs to learn the proper way to walk, talk, communicate and hold the mic,” he says.
And not only the presenters, the audience are also learning and opening up. “Initially, the audience was hesitant about few topics, but now they have accepted many things. It’s going to grow a lot more,” he concludes.
Comments
Rajneesh and Friends, Thanks
Anshul
03 Aug 2012 - 16:59
Rajneesh and Friends,
Thanks for a wonderful 1 hour of non stop laughter ..... Loved it :)
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