After the release of his standup special Daddy Kool last year, Atul Khatri is back with a new hour. Indian comedy’s resident cool dad is touring the country with his brand new show Well Trained with a show lined up in Chandigarh tomorrow. Khatri performed the first show of this new hour on 2 March at Mumbai’s Royal Opera Hall. And after a month of hitting up as many mics as he could he’s jetting off to perform in Gurugram, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Pune, Dubai and Jakarta with a couple of shows slated in Mumbai. We caught up with him to know more about the show and how standup comedy has evolved in the decade that he’s been a part of the industry.
Tell us what your latest hour ‘Well Trained’ is about.
One of the major chunks of the special is dedicated to me talking about the wedding of the century that took place in 2024—the Ambani wedding. I was invited to there as an influencer. I talk about my experience there. I also talk about some of my NRI friends. We were a group of six friends, five of them went to the States to study engineering and they never came back. And the final chunk of the hour focuses on my relationship with my wife, daughters and my grandson, Butter Khatri. He’s our indie dog who we adopted around 4 years ago.
I’m actually pretty happy with how everything has worked out so far. When I write a show, I don’t want it to be just 2-3 stories. I like to have a running thread that seamlessly blends the bits into one cohesive piece. I tend to incorporate a lot of callbacks. And all of that is coming through in this show.
What was the idea behind calling it ‘Well Trained’?
Personally, I spend a lot of time on my posters and show name. I want them to be well thought out and reflect the vibe of the show. Even for my previous show Daddy Kool I had hired a marketing specialist who helped me zero in on the way I should go up on stage, what the poster should look like. For this one, I had a lot of help from my friends. I sat with Azeem [Banatwalla] and Sapan [Verma]. I also spoke with a person who works in a creative role. I took them through my material and we went through many iterations. I was clear that I want an English name because I also travel overseas with my shows and perform to a lot of white audiences. So it was between Well Trained and Domesticated. I wanted to keep it simple so that’s what I picked.
In addition to the India tour, do you plan on doing an international tour this year?
Yes, that’s in the works. We’ll plan a US or UK tour. The usual circuit that comedians do when they go abroad. But that’s for 2026. All these tours take tons of planning that takes months. So while we’re working on it, this year I’m going to just be performing as much as I can in India.
When you do the international tours how much do you tweak your material?
Very honestly, I don’t really tweak the main material at all. Very slight changes are made to localise the humour I would say. But other than that, because of the internet, we’re all pretty connected in a way, you know? So it isn’t like the olden days where there were stark differences in the audiences. Obviously, I can’t make a Mumbai-specific joke in the States or Europe. So I tend just find a similar example and change the place’s name or something.
For that I like to go to any place I’m performing in a day or two in advance. So I have time to explore the city, find these examples. It gives me an opportunity to meet comedians there and ask them for suggestions. But overall the material is always the same.
You’ve been doing comedy for over a decade. Do you still get nervous before a tour or are you used to the drill now?
No no, there’s nervousness before each and every show. Even if I’m doing four shows on four consecutive days, there are jitters in my stomach each time before I go up on stage. Because it’s a live audience and you never know what can happen, right? You try to be too cocky in front of them and they’ll pull you down. You have to be extremely careful till you get that first laugh. Each audience is different. I might kill it at two shows but the third one might not work out. And I don’t blame the audience. There are many reasons why that might happen. And it should happen. Because it keeps you grounded as a comedian. It pushes you to go back to your drawing board and see what you can do differently.
You also released your previous hour ‘Daddy Kool’ as special on YouTube last year. What was the reception like?
So actually, Daddy Kool changed quite a bit. I had actually gone for a US tour in 2020 but came back without doing a single show because the pandemic hit. That entire year was wiped out because of that. But what happened was, I got a lot of time to write new material. I added almost 40 new minutes to the show. And 2022 is when we properly got back into it. I toured a lot with the show for two years and last year is when I recorded it.
I released it in parts on YouTube. It hasn’t done exceptionally well but I’m happy with the numbers. The game has changed now. It’s all algorithmic, streaming platforms aren’t really buying specials. So I thought releasing it in parts was the best idea and it has paid off in some ways.
You said the game has changed. Could you elaborate on that?
So, when I started we had to first get people familiar with the art form. People knew about The Great Indian Laughter Challenge and all. But the concept of going out and watching a live standup show was new. Then YouTube came and things slightly changed for the better. And now social media has come in. All these things have been great catalysts for us to reach out to wider audiences.
When I started we performed in the same 4-5 cities. Now, we can go perform in Bhopal or Indore or any other city for that matter. Language will obviously be a barrier in some. But the fact that people know the rules of comedy clubs now is great. They know they have to come sit in a room, laugh, hoot, have a good time and leave. In that way, comedy has come a long way where it’s become a pretty big entertainment option.
You also mentioned that things have become algorithmic. Does that affect the way you write in any way?
No. Not at all. I always believe your art should be irrespective of the platform. Like TikTok disappeared one day, you never know which platform will or won’t be there tomorrow. Even if the internet stops working tomorrow, my skill to entertain people will be there. I can go up on stage and make people laugh. That’s the main thing that performers should remember.
Having said that, it obviously helps to be seen on these platforms. I don’t have a sword over my head to churn out a certain number of reels every month though. If something clicks that is topical, I’ll push it out. If it works great, if it doesn’t then on to the next idea.
I actually remember, one of my most viral videos—about taking my daughters to a Justin Bieber concert—was the result of a series of tweets I put up leading up to the event. A comedian saw those tweets and told me to perform it as a set. So I found a way of stitching up those thoughts, did two-three open mics and recorded and released the video because it was highly topical. Even today, if I think something is funny, I’ll tweet it and see if people like it. Then I’ll know if there’s something there. So, overall social media is a great tool to test material and quickly bounce off ideas but it shouldn’t dictate how you write.
What’s your advice for aspiring comedians?
The first thing I’ll say is standup is a lot of hard work. I was the CEO of an IT company before I started doing standup and honestly this is more taxing. I had a team of people there. Now it’s just me and my brand of comedy. You have to constantly be doing things. If I don’t post on Instagram or Twitter for six months people will forget about me. So you have to be on at all times.
Secondly, you have to watch as much standup as you can. I remember this very fondly—a few years ago Vir [Das], Rohan [Joshi], Kenny [Sebastian] and [Gursimran] Khamba were all performing on the same day. Vir and Rohan were recording their specials, Kenny was performing his one-hour special and Khamba was doing his new hour. And I went for all four shows. Because as a student of comedy you must see what these greats are doing. Just to understand how they write, what is their humour like. I see that comedians don’t do that often.
If I announce a show tomorrow in a certain city I’ll get 5-6 messages asking for an opening spot. And I might not have that to give them. But after that they won’t ask me if they can just come watch the show. Which is the problem. It goes beyond just getting your stage time. You have to keep consuming comedy to be good at it. It also helps to know what other comedians are talking about. Because you might have similar premises on something topical. And then they complain, oh, why are these guys stealing my jokes? If you don’t go watch open mics or shows, you won’t know that. And now there are so many shows happening every day. You can just go and watch anything.
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