You know those kids who do it all? The ones who will ace their exams, be the sports captain, be a part of the drama society and find time for their passion? Yeah, some of them just don’t quit even in their adult life. Anu Vaidyanathan is one of them. After making her mark in academics and competing in intensive triathlons including Ultraman Canada and the Ironman Triathlon, Vaidyanathan went on to juggle many hats. First she turned towards the written word, then lead a filmset as a director and finally took to the stage as a standup comedian.
After making her debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022 with her show Before Children, After Diapers (BC:AD), with just eight months of standup comedy experience under her belt, Vaidyanathan developed a taste for the stage. Last year, she returned to the prestigious festival for a third time. But as we’ve already established, Vaidyanathan doesn’t half-ass anything. During her 2024 run, she decided one show wasn’t cutting it and took her theatre show Menagerie to Edinburgh. 2025 is going to be similar, with Vaidyanathan hitting the road, testing out new material and releasing a new book based on her debut standup hour. How does one manage to do everything at once? Read on to find out.
After pursuing engineering and endurance sports how did standup comedy come into the picture?
Comedy was actually a by-product of learning filmmaking. I had written a book about my experiences as a female athlete that was going to be adapted into a film in Mumbai. That’s when I started to investigate what filmmaking was because that world was totally alien to me at the time. I was merely a consumer. I started my journey to up-skill as a writer-director but then the pandemic hit.
During the pandemic, I was taking a lot of online classes. In the process, I ended up at Philippe Gaulier’s clown school. I was there just to take notes passively. I was like I will learn how to direct a comedy performance. But he didn’t let me just sit there. He said, you are not here to take notes. I had to perform. There was no theory. It was five-and-a-half, six hours of performance. That time with him really broke my brain. I think that experience was really the reason that I ever picked up the mic to begin with. Otherwise, I’m very happy behind the camera.
What was the major difference between performing comedy and filmmaking that stood out for you?
I feel like filmmaking and writing are inherently very long. You need a long time to see the outcome, even if it’s a short film. Comedy is not like that. You’re either good or you’re shit. You’ll know in a minute. So I think I really gravitated towards that.
Currently we’re witnessing such a boom of comedy. And I think as a cultural moment, it speaks to a person’s natural state of being. You do want to come out and speak your piece. And so that’s where comedy started. Nothing was ever planned. I just fell on my head multiple times and here I am. That’s how it happened.
As someone who studies every medium thoroughly, what was your approach to standup comedy? Were there any particular names that you looked at?
I’m a filmmaker. So for me, the inspirations were not so much standup comedians as they were comedic actors. But then when I started to go up on stage regularly, I think the people that I was actually ever paying attention to were those in my immediate vicinity. Because I’m not a fan of learning lots of tricks. Now in my third year as a comedian, I can absolutely cross my heart and tell you that it’s important to study the medium. It’s important to learn how people arrive at the laugh. It’s very important to revise jokes.
So for me, being in a room, having stage time, those were my priorities. And if the person made people laugh, then it was very important for me to understand why that worked or why it didn’t work. And then during my first year at The Fringe, I took a lot of inspiration from other parents. Men and women. Rob Rouse happens to be a comedic actor and a comedian. Jay Lafferty, she happens to be a comedian and a mom. So these are people that I remember being very taken with.
Speaking of The Fringe, you performed your show ‘Before Children, After Diapers’. What was that experience like?
I absolutely had a blast because I didn’t know better. You know, you cannot coach a fool. I was like, there’s something called The Fringe, there are four venues and 400 people. So it’s like a South Indian wedding. So I showed up in 2022 with exactly eight months of standup experience. That’s all I had. I had no more experience under my belt. I had written the hour because I’m a writer first. It was the performance of it or the construction of it that took the eight months. Because you do have to test everything. You can’t just show up and fart your way through.
At The Fringe in the first year, I recognised that people come there for the art form. They don’t come there for the name. In India, if you don’t have X thousand followers, nobody even gives a shit. I feel that was a very big boost for somebody like me. That month made me very sharp, very quickly. Because you are dealing with all kinds of people and situations. The rooms were often close to full, especially in the second half of my run. So for me, that was a big, you know. It was great.
Last year you toured with ‘BC:AD’ along with a new emotionally charged hour titled ‘Menagerie’. What was that like?
Menagerie is dealing with issues of trauma, mental health, and being immigrant parents. I was workshopping it as a comedy hour for almost six months. But then as I kept going and I kept testing it, there were some pieces which I was not comfortable making fun of. When you’re talking about trauma, you’re talking about mental health, there are certain things that are not funny. It’s up to you as an artist. I’ve seen some very dark subjects be covered very well as comedy. But that didn’t feel true to the way I would want to tell the story.
So I took some quick feedback from some friends who work in theatre and switched gears and workshopped it as a theatre performance. That worked out better for me. So when I took it to The Fringe in that form, I had a very strong emotional reaction from the audience which I’m not really used to. At the end of a comedy show, people will pat you on the back, give you a tight hug or a very good handshake and they’ll say we could resonate with this or with that. But with theatre, when people cry or they have these other reactions, you think you’re hitting places of the psyche that you didn’t think your material could.
Are there any aspects of endurance sport that overlap with performing as a standup comedian?
There are many similarities between an athlete who does endurance sport and a comedian. The tenets of endurance, practice or knowing that you’ve just had a bad moment and you have to recover from it largely overlap in both cases. Especially if you’re trying new material or a new technique. You have to have the tenacity to go on to the next joke. In the in the length of races that I was doing, I would similarly about have 2000 bad moments. And then it was my call to finish the race or to drop out. In both cases you have to have the discipline to focus and stay present.
What are your plans for 2025?
For this year, the format is pretty much the same. I was telling somebody that with comedy, you know, it would be nice if you could produce an hour a year. Artists don’t have deadlines. They have too much freedom. But I’m someone who likes to work with deadlines. But yes, ’25 will be the same. Writing, trial shows and maybe go back to The Fringe. And we’ll be working on a book on comedic writing based on my show Before Children, After Diapers.
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