Tickling Chennai’s funny bone

When their first show took off with great response pouring in from the audience, they decided that this was their calling. The seven-member crew, The Pundits, quickly became the ‘Kings of Chennai Comedy’.

“We were all working together at Crea Shakthi in theatre. But, after a while, we felt we needed to try something different because theatre wasn’t enough. There were a lot of ideas initially like sketches and short plays, but we soon decided that stand-up acts would be the right choice as it was a mash up of all these things. I still remember our first show, on October 19, 2014. It’s probably one of the best ones we have done so far. The audience reaction was amazing and we have never looked back,” said Smarabh. 

The crew, however, became smaller and smaller over time as many of the members left the stand-up comedy scene to work in other fields. Now, only three of the original crew members- Murali Satagopan, Vaidhya M Sundar and Smarabh Sriram- are doing stand-up acts on a regular basis. Abishek Kumar joined the crew just seven months back. “But there has been no change in the relationship the seven shares with each other,” noted Abishek. 

However, the Chennai stand-up scene has changed. Smarabh says it’s tough to make an act fresh these days because of all the new entrants in the arena. “Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Chennai stand-up scene has grown considerably and every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing stand-up acts and open mics. It’s hard to stand your ground now in Chennai because of this and you must evolve to survive. So, we try new things. We have this segment of ours called the underground where we have our own studio. We host our shows there every month and try out exclusive new content like sketches, impromptu comedy, 10-minute plays and everything we can think of. Whatever works goes on to the next show,” he added.

Referring to how the content is created, Abishek said, “Once we find something we write it down, then all of us sit together and test it out on each other and take in each other’s perspectives to improve it. After that we test the content at open mics and carry forward whatever content works. Our meet ups are always fun because we crack jokes at each other all the time. Many times, these casual jokes make it to our shows as well. Even everyday conversations sometimes inspire ideas for the show.

For example, the other day someone came up to me and casually asked me ‘Dude do you want to rock?’. Naturally, my reaction was ‘Sure. Where’s the concert?’ Turns out, rock is a drug that is very popular in the locality. I had no idea about this and it’s funny to think how gullible I was and what could have happened had I not mentioned the concert.”

The Pundits will perform a 90-minute show, compiling the best of the tried and tested content from their summer tours at Alliance Francaise Chennai, Nungambakkam on June 2 from 8 pm.