BENGALURU: With his clean humour and a swoon-worthy smile on his face, popular comedian Naveen Richard was recently in the city, performing his one hour comedy titled 'Read Between the Lines'. CE had a quick chat with the comedian.
Tell us about
Read Between the Lines.
I wrote this show over a year at record speed! But I think it is one of the nicer shows that I have written. The show talks about fame, success and how we are choosing the wrong type of success in life. This was written before I was married, so I came up with jokes about finding someone and about adventures that I go through in life. I am not really making up stories but I just say what happened – how motivation is all messed up, how I went to Mumbai and did all those shows and realised that I was given a big platform...how I used it.
How did you overcome any challenges you faced in the comedy space?
Every job has its challenges. Now I make it look like it is not a big deal but it is a somewhat painful ordeal at times. If you had caught up with me over a year ago, you would have seen me complaining and crying about how I don’t have any skills anymore and I don’t have any jokes. I was desperate, I started praying and things just started falling in place. Then I got a show and on the day of the show, something happens in the airport and that gives me 10 minutes of content! You go through life, you find something funny, you make a note of it in your phone or just do a voice note.That is how I write.
How is it working with Sumukhi Suresh and Kenny Sebastian?
Working with each person is different. I have worked with Sumukhi the most and she is like a machine gun of ideas while I am more of a pistol. So, working with her is fun because there is never a dearth of ideas, not to mention that she is very fun to improvise with. Coming up with an idea and crafting the sketch is hard and takes a while but there will be one idea that we both like and we simply improvise on it. Kenny and I have also worked the same way a couple of times.
What is your favourite genre of comedy?
I like sketch comedy because there is a partner in it and there is a lot more going on. You are not alone on stage and have someone to back you up. It is fun if you have the right partner and for me, writing comes easily. Improv is too fast paced; once you go on stage, you get things done automatically.
Who is your inspiration in comedy?
Brian Reagan. Many Indians do not know him but in the US, he is pretty popular. Another comic I like is Jim Gaffigan, who is a clean comedian but extremely funny. I like to watch them and endorse their comedy.
What made you change your comedy style?
I was doing comedy almost like everyone else, saying jokes in a unique speaking style. I stand for clean comedy. I would try to keep it clean to the best of my abilities because I knew that kids were probably watching. Though there may have been two really good jokes, I got over the temptation of sharing them on stage because I thought if I had kids, I wouldn’t want to expose them to the internet because of people like me. So I thought, best to keep it clean!
If not comedy, what would you do?
I have been thinking about it. I really want to help people. One time, maybe about 10 to 12 years ago, I went to a stationery shop and somebody asked me what I did. I said I studied law but now I do comedy. She said, ‘If you crack one joke people will laugh for 10 seconds and if you solve their case they will be happy for 10 years. Why are you wasting your degree?’ I was like, oh! There are people who need real help and there are not enough people willing to go and help them. I want to switch to something in the social service space.