BENGALURU: They say laughter is the best dose of medicine but city comedians are having a hard time delivering this. According to Pavan Venugopal, a techie and comedian who mainly performs in Kannada, the standup scene is now in a “reconstruction phase”. “People are still in the lockdown mould mentally and it’s very hard for us to bring their minds to the show. Even the reaction time to our best jokes is delayed. People may be okay with stepping out for a show but the comfort level that used to exist in the pre-pandemic days with people cheering us is going to take time,” says Venugopal, who is a part of LOLbagh, the first youth Kannada standup comedy team.
Shankar Chugani has also noticed the same. While the frequency of shows may have gone up, there are also cancellations here and there. The comedian, who shot to fame with Comicstaan, says smaller crowds has also meant a drop in energy. “We are yet to see a point where people are relaxed and having a good time,” he says. Comedienne Punya Arora feels there’s an air of anxiety. “It’s hard to gauge reactions because of masks,” she points out.
Comedians are noticing the need to push harder, not only because people are not in a relaxed frame of mind for a laugh, but also because digital comedy content creators have burgeoned in the lockdown. “The attention span of people has gone down. If it was 30 seconds or more, now it’s now less than 20 seconds. We need to up our material and stage presence,” explains Venugopal.
Arora, who recently earned her first writing credit with Netflix show Masaba Masaba, adds that while they have their pros, an online show doesn’t compare to a live one for her.
Comedian and founder of Graphicurry, Prasad Bhat, has no qualms in saying the scene is dead. “There has been no change since it was always dead for local comics. I haven’t noticed if people are sensitive because for that people need to come for shows. Zoom shows are happening, but no one’s coming for those either,” he says.
Virtual communication fatigue is there no doubt but filmmaker and creator of The Improv, Saad Khan, agrees that there is a technique to navigating shows online. “We had started doing Facebook lives prior to the pandemic, so in a way we understood the requirements. We keep our shows between 30-40 minutes, which are tight, breezy and funny. But there’s a lot of hardwork that goes into it,” says Khan, who has been more than busy with corporate shows too. “Interaction is key. Just like a physical show where a comic picks on one person, we do the same in an online show. No one knows whose turn it’s going to be,” he says.
When it comes to material, lockdown jokes are going to be the norm for at least 5-6 years, opines Venugopal. “There used to be this excitement about the next show – sharpening the edges from one show to another, streamlining things, writing new jokes. Now we don’t know when the next show where you will be facing a crowd of 200-250 people is ever going to happen,” he says.