Nirmal Pillai and Abishek Kumar’s improv comedy show ‘First Move’ is all set to come to Hyderabad

You see these two young boys on stage and automatically know that you are going to have a good laugh. Whether it is on stage or on social media, these comics have become audience favourites — much like the boy next-door. The beloved duo, Nirmal Pillai and Abishek Kumar, come to Hyderabad with their famous crowd-work show First Move, where they set-up dates on stage.

“We mess around with them, and have some segments with fun games,” Nirmal says. One of the segments is named ‘Arrange Marriage’ where they set-up a couple on stage, and ask other people from the audience to play the characters of the couple’s families in an arranged marriage set-up. “This is not a matchmaking show, it is purely for comedy but you never know what can happen,” Nirmal says.

This format was created for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival — a month long celebration showcasing different forms and artistes from around the world. “When we saw this extravaganza, we instantly realised that we will have to do something different to stand out,” Nirmal explains. Indian matchmaking, they thought, is something the foreigners find very amusing, and picked up on that thought to curate a whole show. They would perform the show every day in front of a different audience, and hence over 15-16 days, a format and show was well set.

After coming back to India, they started touring here and realised that they had great content to release online.

Speaking about first moves, Nirmal reminisces his first encounter with Abishek, “I met him at a cultural event in Chennai. He was pretty famous there, and had around 5,000 followers on Instagram, while I had only about 500. In my head, I thought I can do something with him and get famous, so I caught him in the middle of the road and straight away asked how I could get famous…” Nirmal laughs. They became friends over time, and made some videos together which went viral. This led to the hilarious duo of Abishek and Nirmal.

As comedians who became famous in the era of social media, they reflect that apart from the format of the artform, nothing much has changed in terms of the perception. What was once a closed door event, has become an explosion of content now. Multiple avenues have opened up in terms of memes, Instagram reels, Youtube videos and much more.

On a fun concluding note, we asked Nirmal, if he had to make a dating profile for Abishek, what would he write in the bio. He makes a playful remark on how he would never want the girl to see Abhishek clean-shaved.

Tickets at INR 799. March 8, 3 pm. At The Comedy Theatre, Gachibowli