Comedy high for Chennai

Bellies were probably aching on Sunday night. With a double dose of stand up comedy from veterans in the business, Cyrus Broacha and Vikram Sathaye, the Music Academy seemed to resonate with laughter every couple of minutes. And, if there was a momentary pause, it probably was because you didn’t catch the joke fast enough. To which Cyrus would say with a wry smile, “Take your time.” ‘Comedy Night Live’, as part of this year’s Art Chennai, was kicked off by Vikram Sathaye, who the audience took an immediate shine to, for his candid style. No frills. And a lot of accents – think cricket commentators Tony Greig and Navjot Singh Sidhu. Tripping on everything from the Indian Cricket team to Kerala massages and political figures (let’s not get into specifics) sandwiched in between, Sathaye certainly seemed to have covered it all. So this was the reason Cyrus started his segment of the show, by ‘reading’ out a script from his last week’s episode of ‘The Week That Wasn’t’ on CNN-IBN. For those who had missed the episode, it was a riot, but for those who hadn’t, it has to be said that a stale joke just isn’t as funny as it was the first time. However, what he lacked in material, he did make up for with his quick wit and spontaneity. Making his way through the audience, he requested a few random people to read out a few comic lines in Hindi, offered to impart relationship therapy to an elderly couple and on grounds of kidney-care, promised unlimited loo breaks for everybody! In between, he interspersed the set by playing old video interviews (rigged for gags of course) with Home Minister P Chidambaram and actor Saif Ali Khan. Although Broacha was his usual hilarious self and had everybody in splits, to be honest, there was very little ‘stand up’ from his side and more impromptu digs at the audience to pass the time.