The Indian comedian Anuvab Pal can’t wait to talk about “how brilliant Britain is” from his foreign perspective at The Lowry this week.
Anuvab will discuss British culture through his new tour ‘The Department of Britishness’ which comes to The Lowry this Saturday May 25.
The comedian will play a character that has been hired by the Department of Britishness to explain in detail why Indians should embrace Britishness, having done it himself.
Anuvab couldn’t wait to speak to Salford Now about his new tour.
How did the idea for the tour first come about?
Anuvab jokingly answered: “I live in India a lot of the year and I tour around the world and I see too much optimism everywhere else.
“I just love this British characteristic of underplaying any sort of success and complaining about everything (especially the weather) and I just thought it would be nice to do a show that celebrates those aspects of Britishness.”
British audiences likes laughing at themselves more than any other country, would you agree?
Anuvab replied: “I completely agree. That’s 100 per cent true. I think generally the sense of irony and self-abasement is very high in British audiences.
“It’s always a delight to right for these audiences.”
Who’s your target audience?
Anuvab answered: “I tend to get a lot of people in their 40s/ 50s, you know, it wasn’t intended to be that way but that’s the way it’s drifted maybe because I talk about a bit of history and a lot of it is quite global and international.
“However, I’d like to think loads of young people have a great sense of humour. When I do clubs like Top Secret in London the average age group is like seven or five,” Anuvab sarcastically remarked.
What would you say about the younger generation and their sense of humour?
“People always think Gen-Z are always very serious and very earnest about the world, I think Gen Z has a great sense of humour.
“I think as long as your politics are correct I think Gen z will come on the ride with you.”
What would you say is the overall purpose of the show other than making people laugh?
Anuvab said: “I mean it’s interesting really, I don’t play myself and that’s the main difference of this particular stand up show, a lot of stand ups they’re saying ‘this is good’ and ‘this is bad’ and ‘this is who I am’.
“The character I play, you realise very quickly, is selling Britishness because he wants to get out of India for personal reasons and so it’s almost like a one man play really about a character that is espousing these things about Britishness because he might be in trouble in his own country. So in that perspective it’s almost like watching a play.”
Is that different for you, have you ever played a character before?
Anuab replied: “We did it in Edinburgh last year and it’s very freeing to play a character. I’m generally very uncomfortable doing shows as myself so the effort is to, and this is going to sound grand, but it pretends to be sort of like an Indian Alan Partridge who think’s British things are great.
“So I don’t know how that’s going to go down but I can kind of hide behind that mask which is a help.”
Do you have anything else you’d like to say?
Anuvab concluded: “The reason I recommend people come and see the show is you don’t often get stand up talking about how brilliant Britain is from the perspective of a foreigner. So from that perspective it pretends to be sort of (like a) Ted Talk.
“I would suggest people that like comedy theatre or comedy might enjoy this, not just people who come for regular stand up.”
The comedian has been the screenwriter of multiple Bollywood films and is the only Indian comedian to perform so far at Harvard University.
Anuvab’s stand-up comedy special The Nation Wants To Know, has played over 500 sold out shows from Mumbai to Sydney to San Francisco.
Tickets to see Anuvab Pal at The Lowry can be found here.
Recent Comments