Famous stand up comedian and actor Vir Das is in Australia to perform in Sydney and Melbourne. This is his first time in Australia but he has lived in Nigeria and performed all over. He feels that comedy does not change with borders. Das agrees that sensibilities change with cultural boundaries but the basics of comedy remain same so people outside India can laugh at an India centric joke.
Vir Das was at SBS studios and shared his comic-secrets. According to him the tragedy of a comedian is that he is asked to tell a joke all the time. He says, "All the time. They always say, tell us a joke and I say, sure give me the money."
Vir Das is a proud Indian and believes that Indian audience is the greatest in the world despite being hard to impress. He explains, "Indian audience is tough for the first three minutes. It is very hard to impress but if you can hook them up for the first, three minutes, they will be the best audience for the next one hour."
The actor-comedian Das studied Drama in US before returning to India and stepping into films. He prefers serious roles in films to diversify the artist inside him. Nevertheless, his first love is stand-up comedy. He adores Johnny Lever. He says, “Johnny Lever is the God of comedy for me. I attended one of his shows at the age of 12 and that left a mark on me. That show might be the reason I considered comedy.”
He finds Kapil Sharma, the famous comedian, equally good. He says that different people laugh at different things. He says, “All of us have different funny bones. It is a fact that many find Kapil Sharma funny and he can sell more tickets than me. So he is great.” And yet for himself, Vir Das hopes to grow his fan base to the size of Indo-Canadian comedian Russel Peters. He says, “If people want to listen to an Indian oriented comedian, credit goes to Russell Peters. He has put us on the map.”
