OUR TAKE

It was fun for the broadminded at the Indian All-Star Comedy Showcase hosted recently by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF).

Integrating their niche experiences with the wider world, four Indian stand-up comedians prompted numerous laughs and a few guffaws over the hour-long show.

The spotlight was on religion, sex and the mundane, and the comedians deftly delivered their punches scoring comedic bullseyes.

Aditi Mittal as the host of the showcase cavorted about the stage telling her stories with unabashed glee. Yet the content of her show was nowhere as animated as her personality.

Aditi called out sexism and championed feminism with her jokes, and although there were hits as well as and misses, she revved up the crowd with every appearance.

Sorabh Pant delivered an assured combination of insightful punches and easy laughs. The overall energy was surprisingly low but his life observations helped him construct a polished 15-minute segment.

Rahul Subramanian ruled the comedic roost with his timing. His jokes were served deadpan, followed often by an imaginative pause that kept the audience suitably intrigued.

Masking his satirical sights under goo ness, Rahul jumped from one unrelated topic to another. Anecdotes of driving with his wife took up bulk of his entertaining segment.

A memorable bit was when Rahul got the men in the house to give him a cheer and the women in the house to give him a cheer. When they did, enthusiastically, he blamed them for ‘being sexist’ because why should women be in the house?

The last 15 minutes were taken up by Azeem Banatwalla as he touched interestingly on being a Muslim and provocatively tackled the idea of joking about his religion.

“If I said these things in India I would be bombed,” he claimed, as he remarked on the freedom of joking about Islam without raising bedlam, thanks to his broadminded audience.

The audience had more of a good chuckle than constant stitches and the hour passed too quickly.