Biswa Kalyan Rath: We ran out of extremely bad movies

Few in India do observational comedy as well as Biswa Kalyan Rath He believes that his standup comedy style is a mix of observations and storytelling The comedian has blended them together for the Amazon Prime Video special Mood Kharaab In a chat with midday the lsquomast aadmirsquo talks about his learnings over the years roping in comedianfriend Kanan Gill to direct his special and how Pretentious Movie Reviews still has dedicated fansEdited excerpts from the interviewWhat learnings from your last two specials have you incorporated in Mood KharaabIn the first one Biswa Mast Aadmi I was telling my childhood stories Then I ran out of them I thought relying on childhood stories is not a sustainable business laughs In Sushi I talked about my observations and realised that my standup style is a mix of observation and storytelling There is a storytelling segment in Mood Kharaab which is my favourite It is odd and new Creatively I have reached a place where I can blend them togetherWhy is the special titled soI was writing the jokes one after the other and didnrsquot have a theme Eventually I realised these were all firstworld problems they are not real laughs They just spoil my mood Earlier I would approach things with the view that they are bad when in reality only my mood is kharaabWhat are some of these firstworld problems that spoil your moodI have a problem with the Metaverse Can you believe it Itrsquos a ridiculous thing to hate because it is not even of this world I have problems with online shopping and fairytales The basic problem is that fairytales donrsquot take care of logisticsYou recently conducted a masterclass on comedy writing What did you learnWhen you try to teach you understand what you are instinctively doing much better I understood that simplicity is beautiful We tend to get lost in so many complicated things But at the end of the day it is about emotion and jokes You have to have the emotion people relate to and the joke that releasesthat emotion You have to write the joke understand the emotion behind it and everything falls in placeHow did Kanan Gill come on board as directorThis special was supposed to go out in 2020 but got delayed because of the pandemic This was a longrunning deal with Amazon Prime Video They have been very supportive of comedy and making me money I am thankful to them mostly for the money laughs People often ask what does a director do in a standup comedy I took a different approach with Kanan I wanted someone who understands my performance style I wanted a comediandirector to direct me because when you are shooting and performing you donrsquot get an objective view We have a great chemistry and understand each otherrsquos jokewriting approach He has done a great jobHave you two considered making another round of Pretentious Movie ReviewsWe are so grateful that people are still asking for it after nine years At that time we were going with the flow Then we ran out of extremely bad movies Good movies are different but bad movies are bad in the same way and then your jokes become the same We sensed that we were reaching the end point We are glad it picked up because it made both our careers Next year it will be 10 years of Pretentious Movie Reviews Rarely do shows have a great ending I am glad we ended with people asking for moreAlso ReadAnil Kapoor Aditya Roy Kapurs The Night Manager to be back on duty as sequel drops on this date