“It’s surreal. Let’s say one hundred people have come to watch us at the Comedy Story in Los Angeles, and by mistake, another 25 people come to watch regular comedy shows. They’re like, ‘What is this?! What language are you guys speaking? What are you even referring to?’” says comedian Karthik Kumar, founder of Tamil standup collective Evam Standup Tamasha, remembering a set at the iconic comedy club on one of his first US tours. “Local comedians were amused that we got an audience. They are envious that we have our own audience. Even today, only ten percent of the entire US comedy fraternity draw their own audiences… So, yes. We do feel that we are in an enviable position.”
Indian comedians are grabbing their passports and heading out on international tours like never before. And we’re not just talking about sets at the big comedy festivals in Edinburgh, Montreal and Melbourne. In recent years, Indian comedians have taken their solo shows on successful tour to countries across Europe, South East Asia, North America and the Middle East. Last month, Zakir Khan announced a show at Madison Square Garden, the self-described “world’s most famous arena.” Vir Das also made a big announcement last month; the biggest international tour by an Indian comedian, with stops in 33 countries on 6 continents.
Evam Standup Tamasha artists, including Karthik Kumar, Aravind SA, Ashwin Rao and Bhargav Ramakrishnan, were amongst the first Indian comedians to try their luck on the international circuit with a tour of the US in 2013. Karthik credits the excursion to a sense of entrepreneurial spirit. The comedians performed across the country, holding shows wherever friends were willing to help them book an auditorium. The hope was that by the time the tour was over, Evam would recover the costs of visas and travel. “Once we realised that there’s so much more to mine in these markets, it gave us the hope that there is an ability to become a touring artist, especially for the South Indian diaspora,” he says.
In contrast, performing in Mumbai and Delhi was comparatively difficult for Karthik. Being unable to perform in Tamil was a problem, and the culture gap meant that finding relevant material wasn’t easy either. He found, rather ironically, that he didn’t have to make those adjustments while travelling through Singapore, Australia or the US. Performing for Indian-origin audiences—who were dying for a taste of home—was even easier than performing in South India at times. “They’re so excited by the sheer nostalgia we’re giving them,” he says. “And maybe that is the case now and they become far more discerning audiences in the future.”
So, the idea became to draw out the NRI crowd rather than invest time and effort into winning over foreigners. It helps that the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world, with 2.5 million Indians leaving the country every year. “We didn’t want to reach out to Americans. We wanted to reach out to our people who are there, who want a tinge of nostalgia,” says Karthik.
“They’re so excited by the sheer nostalgia we’re giving them. And maybe that is the case now and they become far more discerning audiences in the future.”
Karthik Kumar
He quickly realised that there is tremendous value in touring the smaller cities because big-ticket entertainment options—Bollywood shows and Kollywood music spectacles—don’t reach those areas. Where large music productions will need infrastructure and planning, a comedian only needs a mic and a stage. And audiences in smaller cities like Minneapolis, Cincinnati or Denver are more than happy to receive them.
The US isn’t the only country where Indian comedians are finding favour. Singapore and Malaysia are mature markets where comedians make decent returns. Even the UK and Australia are locations to watch out for, with north Indian comedians like Anubhav Singh Bassi, Jaspreet Singh, Harsh Gujral and Aakash Gupta taking over the European circuit over the last two years.
“Europe is a new market compared to the US,” says Rahul Dua. “Indians have been staying in the US for generations. Parents, grandparents ke time se logg hai vahaan pe. [The Indians settled in Europe] are very young.” According to him, the biggest markets in Europe are in Amsterdam and Berlin. He gives the edge to London and Dublin when taking the UK into account. “The good part about performing overseas is that people from Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh also are a part of the audience there. They come and meet you after the show and they’re like, “Aapka show India mein attend nahi kar paate, par yahaan pe attend kar diya, bada maza aaya.” (“We don’t get to attend your shows in India but we here we do, and we have lots of fun.”)
The Gulf is on its way to becoming another Indian standup comedy hotbed as well, with comedians regularly performing in Dubai. According to Praveen Kumar, there is also an unmined audience in Bahrain which should grow in time.
Comedy Factory co-founder and comedian Manan Desai—who recently sold 18,000 tickets alongside Chirayu Mistry on his tour across North America—believes Canada will surpass the US as a market for standup in the next five years. He attributes this prediction to Canada’s large population of first-generation Gujaratis. In fact, according to the National Foundation for American Policy’s analysis of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data, there was a 260% rise in the number of Indians who became permanent residents in Canada, from 32,828 in 2013 to 118,095 in 2022.
This year, Desai will also be performing in Singapore and Bangkok’s first-ever Gujarati standup shows. The same goes for some countries in Europe. “This time, in European countries where I’m performing, vahaan pe Garba events bhi nahi hui hain,” says Desai. “So, that’s also a dream. Lisbon, Amstelveen, Barcelona—yeh saare sheher mein shayad Garba kabhi hue nahi hain. Aur vahaan pe mein Gujarati comedy leke jaake perform karne vaala hu.” (“This time in European countries where I’m performing, there haven’t even been Garba events there,” says Desai. “So, that’s also a dream. Lisbon, Amstelveen, Barcelona—there probably haven’t ever been Garba events in these cities. And I will be going there and taking Gujarati comedy to perform with!”)
Praveen also recognizes Tamil Sangams—gatherings established to promote Tamil culture and literature—in foreign countries for creating an opportunity for Tamil comedians to get involved. Up until now, the comedian has performed in places like Bahrain, Hong Kong, and even Côte d’Ivoire with the support of these Sangams. Praveen’s ultimate desire is to perform in Japan, and discussions are currently taking place with the Tamil Sangam in Japan to set up a potential show.
Desai noted a similar experience with Gujarati Samajs across North America, “Out of the 46 shows that I did, around 15 to 20 shows I did for the Gujarati Samaj of those particular cities or towns.” These organisations help promote the show by spreading word to their extensive membership. According to Desai, this way he is able to tap into a new pool of second and third-generation Gujarati-Americans who would never have heard of him otherwise. In turn, these folks experience a new wave of Gujarati comedy that offers something very different from the traditional variety one would see in theatre productions.
“Financially it’s much better than performing a show in India in the sense that if I do a 200-seater in Chennai versus a 200-seater in Singapore, I will definitely earn more in Singapore.”
Praveen Kumar
For comedians like Praveen, Karthik and Desai, touring internationally is a sustainable source of income and often more profitable than their tours in India. “Financially it’s much better than performing a show in India in the sense that if I do a 200-seater in Chennai versus a 200-seater in Singapore, I will definitely earn more in Singapore,” says Praveen. Even taking into account venue and travel and accommodation costs, a tour overseas means bigger paychecks. For the biggest names in Indian comedy, international tours can rake in a windfall amount nearing a million USD, according to Karthik. For established comedians a rung below, the numbers drop but are still in the hundreds of thousands.
Given the tremendous numbers and post-COVID-19 restlessness, comedians are willing to travel now more than ever. “Right now, in the UK, there’s an Indian comedian performing every other week,” says comedy show producer Suresh Seetharaman. Suresh and his partner Sandhya Seetharaman are co-founders of UK-based production company Bluefeather Studios, which has produced shows for comics including Praveen Kumar, Karthik Kumar, Alexander Babu, Amit Tandon, Atul Khatri, Sorabh Pant, Varun Thakur, Jaspreet Singh, Abhishek Upmanyu and Kanan Gill.
But with many so Indian artists finding their way abroad, there is the risk that we might be approaching saturation point. It’s already happening in the UK. Audiences are spoilt for choice and the competition is higher than ever. Adding to this is the fact that streaming platforms regularly feature standup specials, many of which feature content from the shows that comedians are touring with.
Considering the high costs involved in producing a show, UK producers of Indian comedy shows require favourable minimum-spend forecasts. “In order to produce a show with an Indian comedian—regardless of their popularity—you need to expect a minimum spend from the audience in order to make a sustainable business,” says Suresh.
“There are high stakes involved in terms of who will take the risk,” adds comedian Alexander Babu who took his show Alex In Wonderland on a whirlwind international tour through the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK and Ireland all the way back in 2019. “Many things can go wrong starting from visas to suddenly a big show happening on the day you had planned to perform.”
In fact, the European leg of Babu’s international tour behind his latest show Alexperience has hit a blip, since A. R. Rehman decided to perform in Germany at around the same time he wishes to perform. “We had been planning [the performance] for six months now—finding the venue and visas takes a while—but Rehman announced [his show in Germany] last week. So now, you can’t call a promoter and say, ‘Can we perform the next day?'”
In a market flooded with options and undergoing an economic crisis, audiences are also far more selective now with the shows they will spend on. According to Suresh, this constitutes significant barriers to entry for newer artists. Unless you’re a fresh fan favourite, a viral sensation or command a large, highly engaged digital audience, you’re going to have a tough time getting a crowd together.
“There are high stakes involved in terms of who will take the risk. Many things can go wrong starting from visas to suddenly a big show happening on the day you had planned to perform.”
Alexander Babu
“I don’t know if young comics can crack into the international circuit unless they’ve got a strong digital presence. That door has been shut because of the absence of strong producers,” says Karthik. An alternative option for younger comedians is to try to capture the attention of international audiences the way their predecessors did. Karthik suggests tying up with other comedians and performing lineup shows. Desai adds his own twist; a lineup show with a theme. This way, a crop of young artists needn’t rely on a regional language to pull a crowd—potential examples from India being the all-Dalit Blue Material lineup or even Navin Noronha’s Queer Rated Comedy.
“EIC (East India Comedy) used to have theme-based shows; a Bollywood show, a news-based show, that kind of theme would really work because it’s standup but it’s also something in the space of live entertainment. If young comics would keep this approach it would really help,” says Desai.
One might not churn out a profit but simply cover costs their first few times around. But more crucially, younger Indian comedians will get to see and experience mature standup ecosystems and learn tricks of the trade (and the fortitude required to make it in the standup scene) from comedians who have plied their craft for 20 to even 30 years.
Meanwhile, in countries like the US, Indian comedians are exerting their own influence on the diaspora. Regular performances by Indian comedians have lead to the growth of a hybrid crop of Indian and Indian-origin comedians internationally. NRIs who dabbled in standup—specifically those who wished to perform in regional languages—saw Indian comics touring in their backyard and realised that there were potential audiences beyond the established comedy scene. Now, they’ve begun to form their own diaspora comedy scenes.
Take, for example, the rise of California-based comedy club Bldg18, America’s first Tanglish (a mix of Tamil and English) comedy club. Bldg18 started off with only five comics in 2019. Today, it boasts more than 55 members, all comedians, who perform in Tamil, English, Hindi, Marathi and Kannada at weekly open mics in locations across the US. “When we started out, we used to have about 10 to 15 people in the audience and then six or seven performers,” says Bldg18 co-founder Karthikeyan Ganapathy, who gives some of the credit to touring Indian comedians who offer opening slots to young diaspora artists. “But today, at every single open mic we have on an average of 20-30 people in the audience.”
Indian comedians have had tremendous success overseas not only financially, but also in terms of supporting a comedy culture which has now begun to take on an identity of its own. A large part of this success can be attributed to the sheer number of enterprising Indians taking a risk and travelling to foreign countries in search of a better living. Ironically, this is the same reason the bubble might burst. Before the international markets mature and we see a plateau in demand, Indian comedians should continue adding notches to their belt, gaining valuable experience and making a mark abroad.
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