Three’s company in comedy night

DEEPAK CHANDRAN was an IT engineer based in Singapore when boredom hit him so hard he decided to become a stand-up comedian. Now, together with Indian comedian Sorabh Pant and Australian comedian and actor Imaan Hadchiti, the three are coming to Manila for a one-night, two-hour comedy special on June 22 at the Tent in Enderun Colleges in Taguig City.

“I would call myself a comic with ‘range,’” Mr. Chandran was quoted as saying in a press release. “I can switch between easy light subjects to pretty dark areas with ease. I could make a family, a bunch of drunks laugh with the same amount of ease.” He added that his influences include Louis C.K., Patton Oswalt, Jim Gaffagan, and Mike Birbigila. He has been doing comedy for three and a half years.

Mr. Chandran described his material as something that is “mostly structured around what I see in the society and how it influences my life.”

“It could be anything from religion, politics, office culture, relationships etc. I write jokes about programming, math problems, yoga, poverty, parents, capitalism,” he said in the release.

In a video excerpt of a performance, Mr. Chandran talked about downloading an alarm clock that only turns off once he solves a math problem. He said when the alarm clock rings, he gets up, solves the problem in two minutes and goes back to sleep.

But things changed when he got an American roommate who downloaded the same alarm clock and when he couldn’t solve the problem, he would wake Mr. Chandran up to solve it for him.

“It suddenly became a community math problem solving,” he said.

ONE OF INDIA’S TOP 10 COMEDIANS
Joining Mr. Chandran onstage for Two and a Half Men is Sorabh Pant, an Indian comic who has performed in more than 250 shows in around the world and was named by the Times of India as one of “India’s Top Ten Comedians” in 2012.

Mr. Pant started as a writer for television. In 2008, he went onstage and opened for Indian comic Vir Das, and in 2011, he launched his first comedy special — Pant on Fire — which was staged in India, Dubai, Dhaka, and the US.

He came up with a second comedy special, Traveling Pants, in 2012 where he talked about the cultures of people in India and around the world.

That same year, Mr. Pant founded The East India Comedy company and recruited some of India’s top comedians including Atul Khatri, Kunal Rao, and Sapan Verma. He left it in 2017 to go solo “and chart his own path,” according to an interview with the IWMBuzz website.

His material has been described by the Dubai Night Planner website as, “over the top,” “manic,” and occasionally, “marginally unstable.”

HALF MAN
Two and a Half Men is hosted by Imaan Hadchiti, an Australian comic and actor who stands at 107 cm tall (3’5”). He has been doing comedy since he was 15 years old and much of his material focuses one the way people of normal stature react to him.

He describes his comedy as “disarmingly cheeky and honest.”

“As a shameless, self promoting, independent artist, there is an obligation to mention that in his 12-year career he has performed in festivals all around the world from Australia and the UK. Recently he has moved to the booming comedy scene in Berlin,” Mr. Hadchiti said in the release.

He has performed at the Adelaide Fringe Festiva and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Two and a Half Men will be held on June 22, 8:30 p.m. (doors, food station and bar open at 6:30 p.m.), at the Tent at Enderun College, McKinley Hill, Taguig City. Ticket prices are P1,500 for Standard and P2,000 for VIP. Tickets are available via 0920-971-7055 or 0917-570-3057. — Z.B. Chua