Laughs for the 'luru

Because in the end, comedy is a serious business, or so believe Sumendra Singh and Adeel KQ, two Bengaluru-based entertainment professionals who share a love for unadulterated comedy. In a freewheeling interview, they tell us more as their recent venture that happens to be the city’s first comedy-only club is all set to launch on May 1.

“Adeel and my friendship goes back a couple of years. We both started out hosting events at night clubs, promoting concerts and curating gigs in the electronic dance music space,” says Sumendra.

“While hosting stand-up gigs at various popular venues ensured a promising turn-up, there was no recall. It was indeed rare to find the same people. So this observation made me realise the need for a permanent establishment where audiences can watch regular shows. After extensive research on international comedy clubs and how they operate, I decided to host a space only for comedy gigs of any kind – Improv, stand-up or skill,” says Sumendra, on how the idea came by.

But in a time and age where the stand-up scene is rapidly growing, with new ventures mushrooming at the drop of a hat, we quizzed the duo about their perspective on the idea’s feasibility.  To which, pat came a spontaneous reply, “After having curated Bengaluru’s first comedy festival, The Bengaluru Comedy Festival in October last year, we realised that the comedy scene in the city is vibrant and gets immense love and support, especially from the audience. It has come a long way since comedians Sundeep Rao, Sanjay Manaktala and Praveen Kumar started driving it. There’s tremendous opportunity for growth for everyone involved as long as they are passionate about their work and willing to work hard. As a producer and now comedy club owner, I would definitely like to see more and more people come out and try stand-up comedy at open mics. We need a larger pool of talent to build comedy into an industry. Also, I strongly feel there’ll always be takers for a good concept. So that eliminates a degree of our fear right there,” quips Adeel.

While the self-confessed music fanatics claim to revel in a host of things, Sumendra stresses on how travel tops the chart. “We’re fortunate enough to be doing what we love – curating live gigs. But when we need to take a break, it has got to be hitting the beaches in Goa.”

Speaking about how the first show which is all set to premier at their club this weekend and what lies next on the anvil, Adeel signs off by saying, “The opening show features some of the most popular comedians from around the country – Daniel Fernandes from Mumbai, Jeeveshu Ahluwalia from Delhi and Sundeep Rao from Bengaluru. We had planned three shows with them and all have sold out already. We have eight more shows lined-up this month with the best comedians in India including Kanan Gill, Aditi Mittal, Sanjay Manaktala, Sahil Shah, Praveen Kumar, Azeem Banatwalla, Vamsidhar B and Vikramjit Singh, among others. The idea is to get more and more people acquainted to the concept of laughing out loud.”