Many closet stand-up comedians in Tamil: Karthik
Comicstaan Semma Comedy Pa is a much-awaited Tamil adaptation of Amazon original series Comicstaan. One of the mentors of the Tamil show, Karthik Kumar tells us, “Tamil stand-up comedy reaches out to issues that are extremely important and local to Tamils worldwide. Therefore, the language helps reach those issues in a much more significant manner. Tamils, worldwide, would be able to identify the vibe of stand-up comedy because issues that are important to them have been discussed in their mother tongue. Moreover, the first season of Comicstaan Semma Comedy Pa is important because it opens up the stand-up comedy paradigm for an entire market of people of a certain culture.” The show was launched on Amazon Prime Video on September 11.
Karthik feels that the show can unearth many Tamil stand-up comedians. “There are many closet comedians out there who wanted to try comedy but not taking the bait because they don’t understand the rules of stand-up. As far as Tamil culture of comedy goes, we understand mimicry, jokes and cinema comedy, but we don’t know what stand-up comedy is. Opinion associated with stand-up comedy is not something people are familiar with or understand easily. Today, people are already familiar with an opinion on social media, they just have to convert that into humour. I think explaining stand-up comedy as a grammar to the audience will empower the audience to be able to make their material,” he suggests.
Though English stand-up comedy is reaching out to a wider audience to represent Indian culture to a world audience, Karthik believes that nothing works more powerful as the local language. “When we say stand-up comedy in a mother tongue, it helps to bring issues that are very important for people — they can react and feel that a meaningful dialogue is happening about that issue through stand up comedy.”
According to the seasoned actor-comedian, the important skills of a standup comedian is to understand issues and its boundaries. “It helps comedians to push those boundaries and also, if they are being critic, they should be able to understand the nature of their stance on issues. Today, comedians are easily subjected to trolls. We need to understand the realms of where we are taking an issue. Pushing the envelope is our responsibility but at the same time, we should be able to defend where we stand concerning the issue. Another skill is to understand the psychology of human beings — understanding why people do what they do is the essential nature of this artform because we can bring that to light and make fun of it,” he sums up.