Comedy central is not as easy as it looks

It’s true. Comedy just doesn’t come easy; especially the stand-up kind with a few hundred Sunday afternoon shoppers milling around. That’s something the five finalists of Radio City’s Sirippu Don (Season 2) realised with a hint of anguish, as most of the gathered didn’t make too much of an effort to laugh at any gag that was less than spectacularly provoking of laughter. In their defence, the ‘comedy dons’ did manage to brave the laughless periods out and manage to come up with some nice situational jokes. And yes, the absence of canned laughter to fill the empty void was sorely missed.Though the pay-off for the winner of the month long hunt is a shot at co-hosting the prime time breakfast show on Radio City 91.1 FM for a month, besides a year’s contract worth of on-air slots, the entire search has been through on-ground promotion, explains RJ Shakti. “Through July we’ve had road shows, comedy drives and other means of selection to rope in ordinary people who can make an audience laugh,” she adds. The finalists were selected by the station’s listeners through the usual SMS-voting system. Perhaps after having talked the circuits off a microphone in a quiet studio, a stage amidst the masses might have proven unnerving for them; the experience would have counted nevertheless.With over a thousand applications this year, this season’s response was overwhelming for another reason according to her, “Last year we had only a few female contestants, but this year they’ve stepped up and really made a mark,” says the RJ. Easy enough to divide, considering two of the five finalists were women. One of them, Saraswathi, clad in a shiny red sari managed to catch the attention of the judge, comedian Aarthy, as she placed as the runner-up.The man who walked away with the ‘comedy don’ cap, Thangaraj, was in a class of his own. With exaggerated movements, ridiculously funny voice modulations and a repertoire of matrimonial jokes in Tamil, he owned the audience and all three rounds of the final with comic ease. Radio listeners need to keep their ears open for this man!Perhaps the others might have fared better live, if they’d taken after the slew of stand-up comedy shows that pepper Tamil channels; either that or they should have brought their own groupies.