All this 'funny ha-ha' business

There’s no escaping us, we told The Improv director Saad Khan. A different kind of ‘situation’ awaited him — random questions with little or no time to think as he responds. Fortunately for us, he complied, throwing in an odd joke or two… Read on:

To perform an improv… is the hardest thing to do because there’s no script. And to derive comedy from given situations, on the spot, is not an easy task. Performance wise, every individual is different from the other and in an Improv act, you have to depend, co-ordinate and sync up with your co-actors. Though improvisation acts are coming to the forefront and is being used in various aspects, for me it’s all about comedy.

The hardest thing… is to make the audience laugh, especially when they have given a situation to the actors. There are times when they go, ‘this is not what I wanted them to do.’ To meet the audience’s expectations, which have a preset mindset, is a huge challenge. Improv can also be very tiring as you have to keep the energy going for that one-and-a-half-hours; there cannot be a low point during the show.

Three ingredients of a perfect show… include an amazing audience, amazing venue and amazing situations.

Does the venue matter? An improv performance doesn’t really depend on the venue but on the people, who can say, “I want to make the actors do different things”. We started off performing in a place like Alliance, we have put up a shows at Chowdiah, Opus and even City Bar – now I feel we can perform anywhere and each place has its own charm. In an auditorium such as Chowdiah, there are no distractions and we have more situations thrown at us, while a place like City Bar or Opus oozes exuberance. The energy levels at bars and restaurants are awesome. I think LikeThatOnly will be a perfect venue to stage The Improv because of its quirky ambience and interesting décor.

What if the audience doesn’t participate?
I never look at it as a failure. We get all kinds of situations and what matters is the final output. And that can happen only when the performers themselves are having fun. They should be able to enjoy what they are doing on stage and that energy in turn grows on the audience, who end up opening up and having more fun.

Sex is an all-time favourite subject, isn’t it? Most of us are fed-up of our Monday to Fridaywork routine and need a break, need to de-stress and laughter is the best therapy. It doesn’t matter in what form it comes. And when it comes to comedy, mostly people are either looking for in-the-face humour, in-between-lines humour or sexual humour. And this is not just in India, the content works everywhere. The audience will laugh the most at below-the-belt jokes because there’s no written word on what’s wrong and you can’t judge it. It always works and it is a universal subject.

Are you never tongue-tied? So far we have never faced a situation where our performers got tongue-tied. In fact, we have had people from other theatre groups challenging us during our shows. We have pulled off successful acts even then. We’ve even had members from the audience who go, “Oh, so he thinks he is cool. Let me take his trip”. And they put the performers in a fix by giving them odd situations, but that’s where, as a host, I have to step in.

Who are your favourite improv artistes? Ryan Lee Stiles, Umer Sharif, Eddie Murphy and Jon Reep.

And your favourite show? I been a fan of Whose Line Is It Anyway? But that was not exactly my motivation to create The Improv. I used to watch a lot of Broadway shows during my stay in the US and I was really and influenced by them.

Improv in India... We have the potential to pull off a good show. But we shouldn’t be completely audience-driven, we should go more live and be open to criticism.
 
Be at LikeThatOnly, Behind Forum Value Mall, Whitefield, 7pm onwards, on August 25, call 65475610