Mohammed Anas comes out to perform his set at Thane’s Backspace Comedy Club and pulls out a comically large piece of paper on which he’s scribbled some notes. Mohammed Hussain sneaks up behind him and “drugs him with chloroform” to take him off stage. Vineeth Srinivasan and Hussain play backup singers as Anas channels his inner Sonu Nigam. These are just snippets from their wildly chaotic and hilarious show Reel-ing It In!
As the name suggests, the three comedians are trying to go beyond traditional standup comedy and experimenting with some alternative formats. Impressions, parodies and live sketches is what you can expect to see between their sets. The idea is to build all these different skills and become well-rounded comedians in the process. And it’s an entertaining journey to say the least because their sense of humour complements each impeccably and their camaraderie is palpable.
If you’re looking to catch this show, you’re in luck. The three comedians have listed two shows at Spades in Bandra tomorrow. We caught up with the comedians to know more about the process, how rewarding (or challenging) it can be to work with friends and what they think is the future of alternative comedy in the country.
So, what’s the show about?
Hussain: For all three of us, this is an experimental show. We all want to try new things. And whatever it is that we want to try—because there are other two people also who are going to carry the show—gives me a little more freedom as a performer. So more than being different from our solo show, I think every show is going to be slightly different from each other too.
Vineeth: Yes, the idea is to obviously do standup but we’ll also look at some other formats like live parodies and sketches. Just kind of bring the Instagram sketch stuff out into the real life.
These sketches that you mentioned are mostly scripted or will you guys also rely on your improv skills?
Anas: Yeah, so it’s going to be a mix of stuff. The last time we got together to shoot some promotional sketches, we had discussed some ideas for what we can potentially do on stage. But then we got distracted so… We have some ideas, but that’s all we have.
Vineeth: Honestly, we have no idea.
You guys had done a similar trial show previously. What was that like?
Hussain: Yeah, we did a show in Bandra to test the concept. Before that show we had asked people on Instagram to give us some problems that they have so we can solve them during the performance. So, people wrote in some stuff and then at the end of the show, all three of us with two mics, because we didn’t have three mics that day, had some fun with it. The Muslim minority boys shared one mic.
Vineeth: That show was actually more traditional in the sense that we all did our material and then in the end tried out something new. This time we’ll try to do more of those format bits.
The three of you collaborate often to push out Instagram reels. Is it easy to work with your friends or does it come in the way sometimes?
Vineeth: It’s definitely easier to come up with ideas when all three of us are working together. But the execution becomes slightly challenging because we end up getting carried away and discussing the idea a lot more than needed. Like, we’ll just keep building on it for hours and then the light is gone and we can’t shoot it anymore. That happens.
Anas: But it’s always fun because all three of us haven’t worked on a lot of things together. We have worked in different pairs always. But when all of us come together it’s like three different styles of comedy coming together and trying to execute something. Like, I’ll say something extremely weird, Vineeth will find another angle to it and Hussain will build on that. We all think very differently so there are many ways to explore the idea. But the idea to crack a route and sticking to it.
Hussain: Overall, it’s a very enjoyable process though. Like, we’ll decide to meet at someone’s house and we’ve committed to making a certain number of reels. We mostly never make all of them but the intent is always there.
Is the idea to record some of these sketches that you guys do on stage?
Vineeth: Yes. Like we mentioned we have some ideas right now. We want to see how we can execute them live but yes, eventually we want to record all of these bits.
Hussain: We did actually record the show we did a couple of months ago and we’ve put some stuff out there. But now we are looking to put out a longer YouTube video. Let’s see how it goes.
Anas: See, right now the idea is to just do these shows and see if there’s a potential show where we can only do these sketches. With every show we are looking to learn something and change the flow of things to tighten the set. In the beginning, it’ll be a lot of trial and error. But haan, reel toh banani hai which is why we have also called the show Reeling It In. At least one reel we want out of every show.
So, is the larger goal to do more of these experimental shows and move away from traditional standup?
Vineeth: More than moving away, it’s about learning new skills. Standup will always be the main goal. But with these sets we are looking to improve our improv and sketch writing. It’s just a way of improving how we look at comedy as a whole.
Hussain: Yeah. With these shows, it also gives us the room to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t do at our solo shows. Like, the pressure is equally distributed now. Out of the three of us, I have the least experimental vibes so I’m looking forward to building out on that. For Anas, this is where he’s most comfortable.
Anas: All of us meet in the middle with this show. Like, Hussain has been doing standup the most out of all of us. He’s been touring and regularly doing spots only second to Vineeth. I have been least regular because of the experimental nature of my shows. There is no bouncing board when you’re performing solo. But now, we have three minds to think of punchlines. We all will think of aspects that the other two might not. That’s the main idea.
Do you feel like Indian audiences are enjoying alternative comedy as a genre?
Vineeth: There is definitely a gradual shift that we can see. Venues have different types of comedy nights now outside of the usual lineup shows. It’s only natural. Like, it’s been over 10 years of comedy in the country. So as performers we are evolving, as consumers the audience is evolving. More meta comedy is coming into the picture.
Hussain: Haan, like the people who have been watching standup for so long are probably like, ab kuch naya dekhte hain. So they’ll explore the alt scene a little more. It’ll keep evolving like that.
Anas: But see, even now when we do shows there are always people in the audience who have come for the first time. So it’s absolutely becoming more mainstream but there are still people who have not explored the space. Like, I recently did a show in Delhi, there were only three people in the audience and it was the first time for all of them. It wasn’t a great show but that’s how it is. You can’t always enjoy every show. That’s also something that people will eventually understand.
Hussain: Yeah. Going off of that, I think standup is like pizza—even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good. But seriously speaking, experimentation works more overseas because the comedy club is a venue where people go to have food and drinks. Even if the show is bad, they are at least doing something fun. So the comedians are slightly more relaxed. Whereas over here, people have paid money and are only going to see me. So it’s on me to make sure that I deliver. This sometimes comes in the way of trying new things. Hopefully that’ll change with time.
You can get your tickets for Reel-ing It In! here.
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