I said ‘baap re baap’ and people loved it: Dan Nainan

The American comedian talks about the response to his first venture in Pakistan

KARACHI:

Fresh off the heels, performing a series of shows in Pakistan, Dan Nainan recently spoke about his first time performing in Pakistan and revealed why he ended up leaving a lucrative career in Intel to ply his trade as a stand-up comedian.

As an American comic, Dan Nainan firmly believes he maintains an edge over comedians from other countries. “Being an American comedian, we have a significant advantage when we perform in another country as we can talk about almost anything, and the audience will still understand it,” says Nainan.

Despite this, Nainan did change part of his stand-up routine to better cater to the local audiences, for instance, some of his jokes which were about American football and soccer were turned into cricket jokes.



“It is a good and a bad thing as everyone in the world knows about American culture but the converse of that fact is that people in America know nothing about the rest of the world,” he states. Nainan notes that one of the chief reasons why several of his jokes were able to transition well over to Pakistani audiences was the cultural perspective that was kept in mind.

Nainan also reiterated the significance of tossing in some local material in between his acts to ensure that the audience remains engaged. “Having toured 20 countries, you start to realise after a while what you should and should not do. The other day I said ‘baap re baap’ and people loved it,” denoted the American comic.

The comedian, who has worked with a diverse group of comedians throughout his career, possesses a taste of local talent as well. LOL Waalay member Akbar Chaudry served as the opening act for both of his shows in Karachi. “Any comedian would love to have an opening act, as the crowd feels like they’re on a varied show and get more value for their money.” Adding that the opening act also has its dilemmas, he says, “It’s like taking the bullet as he [the opening act] warms up the audience for the main act, so its imperative he keeps audiences engaged.”

The former musician, Nainan, is habituated to all types of feedback and does not crave the rejoinder of critics. For him, what is vital is that the audiences take pleasure in his show. “When you’re playing music in front of audiences, you don’t really know whether they like the tunes or not but with comedy it is different.” He further explains, “You get immediate responses from your comedy routine when you know people are laughing. That reaction is genuine as people do not fake laughter,” notes the comedian.

Speaking about performing in front of crowds, Nainan touched upon the magnitude of social media in the progressive world. He is of the opinion that it has made things simpler for comedians by giving them an access to a greater audience.

“This is the beauty and promise of the internet and the phenomenon called disintermediation,” he states. Expressing gratitude to the social medium, he adds, “How could I or Russell [Peters], who is on a much bigger scale, have become famous in the previous model where we’d have to go to a club and hope that there will be a manager present who would appreciate our performance and so on,” explains Nainan.

Having already performed in Pakistan, the comedian is already looking forward to returning to the country and performing more shows here.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th,  2015.

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