Standup comedy shows are to make you laugh, right? To take your mind off things when you have had a stressful day. Thinking of the same, I decided to give Rahul Subramanian’s recently released comedy special, Rahul Talks to People. I understand that every comedian’s humour is not the same, and how they land their punches is very different, but the underlying point is that all comedians have to be funny. But Rahul Subramanian’s jokes neither landed nor did the punches double me over with laughter.
Rahul Subramanian’s Rahul Talks To People, a crowd work comedy special is a compilation of his stand up sets when he interacts with the audience who share interesting incidents that happened with them. The crows work special is one hour long, and his “best” interactions with the audiences from Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Kolkata have been put forward.
The stories that people told were extremely boring, and Rahul made me slink back on my sofa more with his not-so-funny comentary on it. Given that crowd work specials require imprmptu comments, and that is exactly what makes the story hialrious, Rahul Talks To People was just that – Rahul simply talking to people. There was no comment that he made which added a fun twist to the person from the audience’s story. It literally felt like two people were talking, and one of them was standing on a dias holding a mic.
What made Rahul Talks To People particularly boring was how Rahul Subramanian steamrolled the audience’s story with his commentary. His comments side tracked the person’s story, and instead of adding a sense of humour to it, he sounded like he was lecture. There was not a single time throughpit the crowd work special where Rahul must have cracked a joke that you did not see coming. In the end, stand ups are hilarious because the comedians make comments or jokes that are unexpected, and it is how these jokes are conveyed that make us laugh, right? This bit was evidently missing from the episode.
If you read the official description on Prime Video about Rahul Talks To People, you will realise it perfectly summarises the episode. Rahul’s tone is unfunny, his comments are simply conversational as he just piggybacks on whatever the person said in the story, and he draws your attention to way too many unnecesary details from it. The description rightly said that there is nothing valuable in the episode.
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The only thing that I happened to like from Rahul Talks To People is when he asked a person from the audience to call their friend because he learnt she wanted to attend the show but could not because she met with an accident. Rest all the conversations he had the audience were too unfunny to have made an entire comedy special on!
Rahul Talks To People is available for streaming on Prime Video.