THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In India, an engineering job is almost a pre-requisite to be a stand-up comedian. For Chennai-based artiste Alexander Babu, quitting his initial career meant much more—he
graduated to being a comedian, yoga teacher, theatre actor and musician. “Growing up in a village, wanting to get into the entertainment industry only meant movies or the TV. Discovering the art of stand-up comedy gave me some courage because you have more control over the pace and growth unlike trying to get into the cinema,” says Alexander, who has been on the stage full-time since 2014. As we speak to him before he debuts his show, Alex in Wonderland, in Kochi, he reveals a sweet memory about the city—winning a Toastmasters contest here in 2012, which imparted him with the confidence to take it up as a career!
Musical humour
Alex in Wonderland has had quite a long lifespan with nearly 110 stages across countries including the US, UK, and Austalia. “I talk about Tamil film music and how I grew up with it. I also play some instruments and sing on stage,” says the comedian. He attributes the popularity of the script to the diversity of his audience, across age groups; primarily because the jokes are kid-friendly. “Also, there is no trashing. I talk about people like S P Balasubrahmanyam whom I respect and there are no degrading dialogues of any sort.”
Besides music, he also expresses his views on topics like life and religion. This veers our conversation into a question on occupational hazards: has he encountered hate comments? “People do get aggressive on YouTube. We live in rather testing times and the crowd is uncomfortable about certain subjects. But, some do realise that what I do is about finding a language to talk about these issues,” says the 43-year-old.
Kochiites can expect familiar names like Yesudas in the show which has been picked up by Amazon Prime.