Sunil Grover and Kiku Sharda to perform in Dubai

Wednesday, Apr 19, 2017

“See, right now I am sitting jobless at home,” says Sunil Grover, actor and comic, when I ask him about a return to television. “I was used to shooting every week, twice a week. Now that kind of occupation has faded away from my life. Since I have to work I will work. But… right now I’m in no state to understand where and what I should do. I’m just trying to [take] some time [and] think about figuring it out.”

Perhaps he’s still recovering from the plane debacle: a public spat on a flight from Australia to India with the star of his previous show, Kapil Sharma, which resulted in an abrupt exit from the segment.

However, in no way is this comic shying away from the public eye. He is bringing his routine to the UAE, with a show called The Comedy Clinic, on April 20.

He comes along with old buddy and co-host Kiku Sharda, who played Nurse Bumper on The Kapil Sharma Show. In a phone interview with Gulf News tabloid! ahead of the show, Sharda explains their act, “Whatever they’ve [the audience] watched us do on television, a glimpse of that will happen on stage. We play various characters on our show: there’s Dr Mashoor Gulati and there’s Bumper, and there’s [Rinku] Bhabi… There’s obviously a lot of fun [on offer].”

Grover simplifies the expectations: Dubai can look forward to a good time, he says. And a lot of laughter. So what’s his message to the city? He pauses, then says in a deadpan voice: “Please eat and come.”

The stand-up’s voice is warm and conversational, and the fact that he’s rushing from one photo shoot to the next — I’ve been given two minutes and instructions not to ask about the television bromance trouble — is almost forgotten as he gives me a run down of his own expectations from the city. “I want to be happy. I want to laugh and make everyone laugh. I am actually looking forward to a good time with the audiences… and meet people who like to watch us on the show and like our act. And it gives [us] an opportunity to meet the people and to see them, and watch people [who are usually] on that [opposite] side of the television, which we don’t normally get to see. So they think they’re coming to watch us, [but] it’s the other way around, I’m coming to meet them.”

Shrada also says the duo has some new material for the UAE. “For Dubai, [we’ve] kind of incorporated a few things in terms of writing, and [the show] is very interactive… which is something the audience has always enjoyed and we’ve also learnt that when we go live.”

But then, a live show always comes with the fear that it won’t work, that the audience will not connect to the script. Do they ever worry about that? Sharda seems confident. He says he knows what works on stage and knows his audience.

He explains that the sense of humour in India is different than it is in the West. “Sometimes people don’t really like to apply too much mind into a joke and sometimes when I find a joke extremely intelligent, as in ‘oh, this is really sharp, and it’s got three meanings’, and if someone carefully listens to it you can realise what the different meaning[s] [are]. I find sometimes that the audience will not put in so much effort… [Besides, people in India like] comedy in motion…”

So what do the comedy doctors prescribe? A good dose of physical humour and fun times.

Don’t miss it!

Tickets to the Comedy Clinic, which runs on April 20 at Shaikh Rashid Auditorium, The Indian High School, Dubai, start at Dh150.

By Karishma H. Nandkeolyar, Copy Editor