Funny man Vipul Goyal is very straight forward. He tells his fans not to come back before a year, after watching his performance. The comedian from Rajasthan, who has made a mark for himself in the industry in the last eight years, prefers stand-up comedy to TV shows. Here for a performance at a city hotel, the artiste spoke to Indulge about staying out of controversy, why trolls don’t matter to him and launching another season of Humorously Yours. Excerpts:
Goyal made frequent trips to the city this year. To be precise, thrice in three months. We ask him how fresh his content is in every performance, since he has frequented the city this year? He quips, “I tell my audience in every show not to come for a year, at least. See, if you have watched a comedian for one hour you should not watch him for the next one year. New content takes a lot of time to develop. Also, there are so many other people, who want to watch me in the same city, they should be allowed to buy tickets.”
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The ace comedian makes it clear that there are just two requirements for his audience. “My audience should understand Hindi and should be Indian. The kind of content I do is quite relatable,” said Goyal, promising that he will give us some more new content next time. Answering the question on whether the content for Kolkata is different because of the Bengali diaspora, he quickly points out in his style, “Bengalis don’t buy tickets and watch me. The ones who spend on tickets are mainly Marwaris or North Indians or the ones who are working away from their homes.” What if a foreigner is sitting in the audience, we wonder out loud. Goyal responded with a poker face, “It’s his fault that he brought the wrong ticket.” He doesn’t care about trolls simply because they are not his audience. He says, “I have never been subjected to serious trolling but if people can abuse Virat Kohli, then I am nothing. Also, the trolls don’t buy tickets and come. So, they don’t matter to me.”
Talking about how he has grown as a comedian over the years, he believes he can be himself on stage now. “My style has changed and I am more of myself on stage now. Earlier, I used to write the jokes and take it with me on stage. It’s been eight years and I am more prepared now; I have a bank of content and I keep adding new jokes,” said Goyal, informing us that it takes a year to refresh the content as making a workable joke is a trial and error process.
Talking about his plans, he revealed that YouTube and Stand-up comedy will be his platforms and not TV. His reason: “I don’t like the comedy that airs on TV. There are lots of constraints. Also, the main audience for television is tier 3 (Nashik and Kolhapur) and they expect me to dumb down my content. I want to perform for an intelligent audience, who would know what I am talking about.”
Fans can expect another dose of laughter with the second season of Humorously Yours slated to launch online later this month.