Jagan Krishnan, a comedian with strings attached
Delivering stand-up acts in the Tamil language, Jagan aims to be relatable to his native audience, and gladly he has been accepted well.
Musical comedian Jagan Krishnan.
CHENNAI: When attending a stand-up gig, if you ever notice a bearded man with a guitar, you can be sure that it’s none other than the musical comedian, Jagan Krishnan.
Frustrated that he couldn’t be a singer, Jagan went on to take up engineering, only to later become a comedian, who sings in a perfect pitch that a stand-up comedy would require. Unbelievable right? “It’s been over eight years since I started stand-up, back when I was 26. I feel like I have been into stand-ups my entire life, observing characters around me and making them laugh,” says the comedian, who started off with stand-ups in English, later drifting towards musical comedy pieces in his mother tongue, Tamil.
Observational stand-ups were not established at the time Jagan started. He always wanted to be unique, standing out from others. Musical stand-up allowed him to do so. “When every other performer holds on to their mics, I hold on to his guitar,” he quips.
“Musical stand-up acts are usually storytelling or anecdotal humour conveyed through a song. I used to do observational humour on music directors, their styles and way of composing songs, using a guitar. I am basically funny with background music,” adds the comedian quickly.
‘Why Harris Jayaraj is great?’, read the title of Jagan’s most famed musical stand-up act. Calling Harris his gurunadha and making everybody present there laugh out loud, the comedian states, “I talk about the pattern in his frame of work, where one can connect one of Harris Jayaraj’s songs to another in a funny manner.”
Delivering stand-up acts in the Tamil language, Jagan aims to be relatable to his native audience, and gladly he has been accepted well. “The Tamil audience, who are extremely critical of the whole idea of stand-ups, but if it’s a good humourous piece, they celebrate it. I hope that people open up and accept other forms of stand-ups in the near future,” highlights Jagan.
The comedian will be performing his first solo stand-up special on September 17, at the Music Academy from 6 pm.
“Jagane Thandhiram is a musical stand-up romantic comedy show, where I will focus on how I found love, and how love stories back in the 80s and the 90 era used to be. It will be a night filled with light-hearted humour and laughter,” Jagan adds.
