KOCHI:Get ready to laughOshin Grace DaniellA dimly lit super cold lounge with about 20 people seated on couches placed near roundtables. A blend of contemporary, soft rock and blues in the background and a lonely mike stood at the centre of the room. A young man in his 20s who looks like the doppelganger of Tiger Shroff runs to grab the mike and breaks through the musical air as he transforms it into an atmosphere of whimsical humour.
Vinay Menon, who is one of the first English comedians in Kerala and the host of ‘Comedy Lounge’, opened the first chapter of their stand-up comedy event at Ava Lounge, Radisson Blu here in association with Myuz entertainment. This Kochi-based comedian has been putting in a lot of effort to improve the stand-up comedy scenes in the city by regularly bringing in artists from across the country. The show marked the debut of another Kochi-based young artist, Sabareesh, who is an amateur script writer-cum-comedian. The guest artist, Kritarth Srinivasan, a Bengaluru-based writer-cum-comedian iced the cake with his radically distinctive yet grossly unconventional jokes on childhood, unemployment and home-cooked meals.
This engineering drop-out who later became a history graduate has been in the industry for more than six years and has done over 1,000 shows in India and abroad. He is the co-founder of Bangalore’s only comedy collective, ‘The Puncher Shop’. He is the only Indian comedian who did a show at Freight and Salvage, San Francisco, USA. He has a blog called ‘Comic curry’ where he posts regular humorous content. “Stand-up comedy is gaining momentum in Kochi but most of the time people aren’t aware of the shows because information on it is generally online.
The place where it is organised is also a factor,” said Vinay. According to him, ‘Comedy Lounge’ is an effort to get people on board in the stand-up comedy boat. “There are many in the city who are interested to venture into comedy but as they don’t get the right exposure, most of them don’t step in,” he said.‘Comedy Lounge’ is all set to bring in a paradigm shift in the humour domain in the city with monthly comedy shows housed at the Ava Lounge.
