The Beeb has uploaded eight Edinburgh stand-up performances here.
Umer Sharif:
” … a legendary Pakistani stand-up comedian, stage, film and television actor, writer, director and producer.
… Bakra Qistoon Pay is considered to be the show that made stage plays what they are today in Pakistan. Before the advent of Bakra Qistoon Pay majority stage shows in Pakistan used to be classy with rather poetic dialogs. After Bakra Qistoon Pay (Goat on installments) stage shows became a vibrant, majorly comical (and often gritty) part of the Pakistani culture. It has also sparked many sequels. He has also produced films like Mr. 420, Mr. Charlie, Miss Fitna, etc.”
The above video is Sharif doing stand-up. It’s in Urdu.
Joe Wong — who has been featured on this blog before (one, two, three); we performed with him once, too — sent out an e-mail the other day, and it — in light of the recent Brazil and Pakistan posts — is worth re-posting:
Final note: While it is a distinct honor to be featured on the front page of Wall Street Journal, I would like to offer my opinions on some of the points made in the article.
1. The article stated, “But in China, there ‘s no humor in misfortune.” In America, it is said that “Comedy is tragedy plus time” It is also true in China. One of the most popular routines is about the thoughts of a guy trapped in a tiger den at a zoo (虎口遐想). During the golden age of standup in the 1980’s, many routines were based on people’s suffering during the culture revolution in the 60’s and 70’s.
If you have been to any comedy clubs in the United States, you probably know that if the comedian says, “I just broke up with my boyfriend….” American audience will respond with sympathy too. It’s not like American audience laugh at just any misfortune.
2. I don’t believe that humor doesn’t translate. Mark Twain’s humor was in both Chinese and English text books in China. Recently my performance at the RTCA dinner appeared on several Chinese websites and had 2.5 million views on one site alone. I received many emails from China saying how much they enjoyed it.
My performance in Beijing early 2008 was the first and the only gig I performed in Chinese in front of a small crowd of 50-60 people in a 300 seat theater. I translated my jokes from English to Chinese for about 7 minutes. From that very limited experience, I felt certain jokes that play on logic went well. For example, the joke, “If I were to die in a car accident, I want it to be a collision with a cement truck. That way immediately after I die, there is a statue of me.” People applauded that joke. But jokes that rely on word play and cultural subcontext wouldn’t.
Furthermore, one can’t make such sweeping conclusions about differences in people’s senses of humor based on one show I had in Chinese, and some shows by Judy Carter in Hong Kong in English. And just to be clear, my first show in China is more successful than my first show in America 8 years ago.
In short, I believe that humor comes from the same core in each culture and each person. Depending on the traditions and cultures of different countries, it takes on different forms.
José Vasconcelos - Eu Sou O Espetaculo (I Am The Show.)
”[José] started in radio, and became famous by doing imitations of the voices of other speakers and artists such as imitation Ari Barroso presented a program for freshmen.
He became very famous for his jokes stuttering, and the sketch “The Talker Football Gago” one of his greatest successes. His unparalleled ability to mimic provided unparalleled performance imitating stuttering, making these imitations in their particular brand.
Produced and starred in the first sitcom of television in Brazil, “The Plays of Joe”, aired by TV Tupi in São Paulo in 1952 .
In 1960 he recorded an album for Odeon, “I am the Show”, probably the first comedian to sell over 100,000 copies of an LP of the genre, and that disk had a duration of 55 minutes, the longest LP humor that went into the country. His success paved the way for record companies to invest in the segment, but Vasconcelos himself could not repeat the success of his first recording.”
(Link to the wikipedia page. Portuguese.)
In a bar, a comedian takes the stage and, alone in front of the microphone, make hilarious observations on daily life. For nearly two years, this type of humor, called stand-up comedy, has been gaining strength in large cities. Unlike the comedy that has always been successful here, based on jokes formal and histrionic characters, the stand-up comedy explores the public’s familiarity with the themes and improvisation.
…
In Rio de Janeiro, the Standing Comedy Club has packed two theaters since January, when it debuted. Earlier this month, four members of the club - the actors Fernando Caruso, Fabio Porchat, Paulo Carvalho and writer Claudio Torres Gonzaga - came to occupy, on Saturdays and Sundays, prime time in one of the rooms in the ICU shopping New York City Center, also in Barra. Instead of American film, stand-up comedy in Brazil. The idea, unprecedented in Brazil, repeated the experiment done by the company in London and Buenos Aires.…
Gonzaga is editor in chief of Zorra Total, TV Globo, a program whose type of humor is the opposite of comedy stand. He created rules for their group in order to bring it closer to the root of the stand-up: the comedian has to present himself alone, and must be the author of the text itself, can not play a character or use a different outfit from the clothes of the day- to-day, can not tell stories or jokes known and finally, it is forbidden to make use of set design, soundtrack or sound effects. Difficult? “The strength is in the text. Often the audience applauds the most intelligent observation, with which he identifies, that’s funny,” says Gonzaga.
If, in Rio, the stand-up theater and cinema occupies in Sao Paulo two groups provoke laughter in bars. Two years ago, the Comedy Club Stand-Up shows out several houses in São Paulo. Six comedians share the stage. Each has a duration of five to 15 minutes. The other troupe of São Paulo is the Comedy Live. It also works in the scheme of the club, with a fixed set of four actors who take turns on stage. In addition to organizing in “clubs” and rules very similar, the groups are exchanged. Some are invited in the presentations of others. Another common point is to do the same shows. Each presentation has new texts, which helps ensure a full house. “But sometimes, some texts are so successful that the audience asks to repeat the jokes and end up getting fixed,” says Fabio Rabin, 25, of Live Comedy.
— via Epoca, 2007.
(Links to a google-based translation, where this — obviously — comes from.)
In all the countries that I have travelled to to perform standup comedy – the United States being a regular destination – I have never been held up or interrogated at customs. Or I hadn’t, until I arrived in Pakistan last week. I spent six hours at Lahore customs, as I did not have a visa in my British passport to enter the country. The people who organised my gig had mistakenly assumed that because my parents were born in Pakistan and I too am brown, they would automatically let me in.
The customs officer asked: “Are you Pakistani?” Yes. “Where were you born?” England. “That makes you a foreigner.” I get called a foreigner in my parents’ country of birth, and I get called a foreigner in my own country of birth.
He looked through my passport, which is filled with US visas. He said: “Are you a spy?” No, I’m a standup comedian. “What’s that?” I tell jokes. “And will you be doing that in this country?” Yes. “Oh, is this the entertainment for the Taliban?” he asked, quite seriously. No, I replied.
He said: “What I should do is deport you, but if you give me $100, I’ll see what I can do.”
I paid it. I got in.
— “Halal comedy?” Shazia Mirza, April 12, 2010, in The Guardian
Previously: a Pakistani comedian from Karachi dressed as a Victorian automaton performing in a virtual space, improv comedy + Urdu, Saad Haroon.
Saad Haroon. Pakistani stand-up. via Al Jazeera English.
