The Rishi & Sharul Show

Event: The Rishi & Sharul Show
Venue: Goodman Arts Centre Black Box
Run: 5th – 14th Feb 2015

All You Need is Laugh

You might have seen Rishi Budhrani and Sharul Channa starring in HuM Theatre’s “Rafta Rafta” and “We Are Like This Only!”, but this is they first time the real-life couple are doing a comedy show together.

A number of questions come to mind before attending a show like this: Just how funny are the couple? Do they have enough stand-up material to last a full 80-minute show? What subject matter will the duo focus on?

Having attended opening night, it did seem like the nerves might have gotten the better of the couple, at least for the first few minutes, especially considering there were a number of their close family and friends in attendance.

However, the couple soon got over their jitters and hit their stride, with Sharul coming across as the slightly more composed and natural of the two.

The couple took turns to do solo stand-up routines, sometimes ribbing members of the audience, cracking jokes about gender, ethnicity, relationships and so forth.

They also demonstrated competent improvisational skills, and were often able to think on their feet and come up with impromptu jokes while playing off the audience.

Audience response was both raucous and fantastic, and there was no doubt that those in attendance were being highly entertained by the comedic duo.

The solo routines were interspersed with a number of comedy skits, often broaching the subject of marital relationships, with some pertaining to social commentary as well.

The inherent husband-and-wife chemistry was put to good effect, and you could truly sense the level of warmth and familiarity the two of them had with each other, which added that much more authenticity to the proceedings.

One of my favourite skits was the second one with the couple in the cafe, the husband glued to his iPad and his wife glued to her phone, both suddenly making a serious examination of their own marriage after the husband reads a random survey on Cosmopolitan.

The final skit where they keep rewinding and redoing their choices every time the bell rings was both highly entertaining, and demonstrated great comedic timing as well.

There were hardly dull moments in the 80-minute act, with the duo keeping the energy level consistently high throughout the show, although the “fruit fight” skit did come across as trying to stretch a gag way too far.

It is undeniable that both Rishi and Sharul give every ounce of energy to the show, and viewers who attend it would no doubt be entertained by the comedic prowess and sheer infectious enthusiasm of this hilarious husband-and-wife tag team, who spend most of the time mercilessly poking fun at this love-hate relationship known as “marriage”.

Whoever said love is a funny thing probably never meant it this way.