Rubab Nayeem Khan reviews Dhaka Comedy Festival 2015
By Rubab Nayeem Khan
Photos: Ashraf Uddin Apu
As March came to an end, Naveed’s Comedy Club made sure that the month rolled away with good cheer. The laughs got bigger and better when Bangladesh’s first stand-up comedy entity, hosted the 2015 Dhaka Comedy Festival on March 20, Friday at the Baridhara DOHS Convention Centre, Dhaka.
The first of its kind, this festival certainly jerked the laughter out of new and old followers. It featured the best local comedians performing in front of a crowd of four hundred and fifty people. The line-up included comedians such as Naveed Mahbub, Yamin Khan, Aneek Khan, Shahriar Sharif, Solaiman Shukhon, Mosharraf Yaafi, Gulsetyne Ahmed, Tahsin M Khan, Shammi Huda, Max Mystel, Ishtiaquddin Ahmad Ashiq, Ahmed Zunayed, Shawon Majumder, Eftekhar Alam, Istiak Nasir Rajon, Aneek Haque, Nawaf Naser, Mohammad Parash, Pervez Suman, Abu Hena Rony, Farzana Shashi, Mohammad Towhid, Shahryar Khan, Govinda Tarafdar, Fazlul Shaki, Emdadul Haque Hridoy, Saifur Rahman Saiful and many more.
Naveed Mahbub opened the show with his quirky humour and then introduced the other comedians. The jokes were a mesh of English and Bengali which made it more enjoyable for the audience. The jokes and puns were directed towards people of all ages. Some comedians tried out song based humour which had the audience singing along and laughing their hearts out, of course.
The festival provided a range of other humour based segments which included open mic where anyone could try performing comedy in front of a real crowd. This session was moderated by Naveed Mahbub. The viewers anticipated this whole heartedly since these performers had no prior experience of comedy.
The purpose of this was to do improv comedy and Dhaka Comedy Festival certainly had a handful of gutsy new comers. There was also an open mic session for ladies and children. A roasting session was held where comedians asked questions to which the audience responded. The audience engaged in heckling to respond to the wit and comments made by the performers. There was a Joke Bucket Challenge where audience members wrote down topics and put them in a bucket from which comedians drew those out on stage and performed an act based on those topics.
Overall, the show brought the best out of both the comedians and the audience.
“I really liked the show. I think comedy is a brilliant form of entertainment and it would certainly flourish in Bangladesh. However the Bengali crowd still needs to practice attending more shows like these so that they can appreciate it. Most of our entertainment revolves around eating out or taking pictures, but hopefully things will change now that we have comedy to look forward to.”- Tahsin
“I’ve been following Naveed Mahbub’s shows for quite some time and I really appreciate what he’s done with comedy in Bangladesh. Leaving a post at IBM to set up this venture is a huge sacrifice. This was my first time performing for open mic; it was a little difficult cracking jokes since one has to be careful about sensitive issues such as politics or religion. Regardless, I think one has to do extensive amount of research to make our crowd laugh and Naveed Mahbub has done it successfully.”
-Raihan