Punch Liners promises an unpredictable evening where humour and visual quirks meet

Comedy shows rarely promise emotional release, but Punch Liners leans into that expectation. The evening brings together Praveshika Kumar, Shruti, Jagan Krishnan, Bharath Balaji and Sudarshan Ramamurthy for a performance that treats humour as both confession and collective comfort. The intention is simple: keep the audience engaged not only with punchlines but with the unpredictable rhythm of performers in conversation with the room.

From unhinged confessions to nerdy punchlines, this line-up delivers comedy that feels all too familiar

For Praveshika, relatability is at the centre of her performance. She describes her set as a place where “audiences can expect a lot of relatable moments, from their own lives or someone they know. My only aim is for everyone to feel like I’m one of them—that no one is dealing with things alone, and we can all laugh together.” She adds with a smile that the audience may also leave thinking she is a little unhinged, something she accepts with ease. She is particularly looking forward to seeing how her combination of stand-up, improv and visual cues shapes itself on stage, noting that each audience brings out something different in her material.

Sudarshan approaches the evening with a slightly different lens. He describes the show as a blend of stand-up, improvisation and presentation slides, likening it to a meeting that should've been an email—except the manager is trying to be funny. He believes audiences are increasingly open to formats that stretch the genre. He notes that a decade ago, stand-up itself was considered experimental in India and hopes that this show “is an effort to showcase a different facet of comedy and remind audiences that some things are best experienced live. So, if they weren’t open to it before, we hope they are now.”

Shruti adds a distinct perspective to the line-up. She describes the show as something that blends sharp wit, wordplay and physical comedy, with visual humour appearing towards the end.

Bharath Balaji adds a delightfully nerdy flavour to the line-up. “Did you know the first ever knock-knock joke is roughly 3,000 years old?” he asks, laughing. “Or that the English language came about by pillaging, plundering and colonising other languages? If not, boy, do we have a story for you.” For him, the charm of Indian stand-up lies in its diversity. “The audience isn’t a single entity—never has been. You have folks who want new stuff all the time and folks who know exactly what they like and want only that. The struggle is finding your niche.”

When asked what the audience will walk away with, Sudarshan says, “I hope they walk away with jokes they’ll butcher while narrating to their friends, before eventually giving up and saying, ‘You should’ve been there’.”

Shruti perhaps sums it up best when she says she wants audiences to leave with “hope, that if these five jokers can survive life, so can we.”

₹399 onwards. On November 23, from 6 pm onwards at Punch – The Unpaid Therapist, Alwarpet.

Email: shivani@newindianexpress.com
X: @ShivaniIllakiya

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