BENGALURU: Ask stand-up comedian and writer Sumukhi Suresh on what she missed out on in her career which started in Bengaluru in 2013, and she says solo stand-up comedy is something she needs to indulge in more often. Recently, the comedian performed at Mother Tekhla Auditorium, Ashok Nagar, which turned out to be a laugh-riot and was the final part of her extensive road-test of her one-hour Amazon special, Don’t Tell Amma, which was released on December 20.
Based in Mumbai, Suresh says she changed her method of doing stand-up comedy after people found it funny when she intertwining an observation within a story.
Don’t Tell Amma revolves around various events from her childhood, which she spent growing up in Nagpur. The show focuses on stories and observation, which she says, are classic Tamil Brahmin problems. “It’s about how I was raised poor as my family was not well-to-do but we still behaved as rich people only because my parents were well-educated. My mother, on the other hand, is a complete go-getter, which would leave me worried at times,” said Suresh.
In 2017, Suresh created the webseries, Pushpavalli, which starred fellow comedian Naveen Richard and was directed by Debbie Rao. It had a stark similarity to events in her personal life. “I moved to Bengaluru for a guy and was quite obsessed with him. In my case, drama follows me at most occasions, which ends up contributing to the content. Real life isn’t black or white, everybody’s story is grey,” she added.
Suresh also acted in the satire Kannada film, Humble Politician Nograj (2018), alongside fellow stand-up comedian and actor Danish Sait and director Saad Khan, with whom she kicked off her career in stand-up with the Improv. She emphasised on improvisation skills being a crucial part when it comes to creating content. “While acting comes to me in an easy manner, stand-up takes a lot more effort. I started my career with Improv and even now I carry improvisational skills into everything I do. As a matter of fact, when I work with Richard, we don’t write the dialogue first, rather we improv first,” she said.
Suresh looks forward to releasing the second season of Pushpavalli. “I’m working on another new one-hour special and writing three fiction shows as well. I wrote Pushpavalli because nobody would give me the lead and that seems to continue. I’m also going back to posting content on YouTube because that’s long due,” she said.