‘You are as annoying to your spouse as they are to you – so don’t get smug’

This February brings the visit to Bristol of 2018 Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee Sindhu Vee.

Sindhu was born and raised in India and has received degrees from Delhi, Oxford, McGill and Chicago Universities. After a very short stint as an Yves Saint Laurent model, she changed direction, heading into investment banking.

Now she’s made another radical career shift, into stand-up. And all the evidence shows it’s been a wise move: a two-week run at London’s Soho Theatre, a booking on Live At The Apollo, and a second Radio 4 series have all arrived in swift succession.

Here’s Sindhu on love, loyalty, marriage, a well-travelled childhood… and where in the world to tread carefully with the blue humour.

Full UK tour, fortnight at the Soho Theatre, second R4 series, Live at the Apollo… 2019 has started busily for you. Will you look back on these few months as a key moment in your career, do you think?
Absolutely. It feels like a lot of the hard work that’s gone into the foundations of my comedy life is now bearing fruit! I’m beyond excited about the tour – seeing the UK in this way… I mean, how fortunate am I? And recording Live at the Apollo was just beyond thrilling… It’s really ALL just spectacular and I feel grateful and slightly buzzed all the time.

Tell us about the new show and its themes.
Sandhog is about love – how hard it is to love anyone at all, completely. It always has a cost. But who doesn’t crave love??
So, what are we going to do? Put up with it, find a way to deal, laugh… you have to take the dark with the light. I’ve made the show sound really serious now. Ugh. It’s not. There is even a fart joke.

“This show also looks at some home truths on marriage” – can you tell us any more?
STAYING married and STAYING happy are absolutely not the same thing. Be aware of that. To make both these things (marriage and happiness) occur you need techniques, which I talk about in the show. Also be aware that it’s very likely that you are as annoying to your spouse as they are to you – so don’t get smug.

Studying at four universities, modelling, investment banking, and now stand-up… will this be your last career change? Does it feel more ‘you’ than the last two, or are they all facets of you?
Those careers were all great fun and gave me a lot but, looking at it now, I realise they were all building blocks to get me here, to comedy. I’ve taken something from each of those past ‘lives’ that has allowed me to come to comedy with my particular viewpoint. And comedy is my home. I don’t ever want to leave.

Growing up in the Philippines, Lucknow and Delhi… tell me about your memories of those places. Where felt most like home, for you?
It’s funny but each of those places felt like home and not-home in some way. I was very young in the Philippines and, because my parents were part of a tight-knit South Asian expat community, I KNEW we didn’t belong there – but I felt more at home there than in India when we went back on holidays. I didn’t speak any Indian languages and the television absolutely sucked.
Then, when we moved to India and I became fully immersed in school there, I realised I was more like everyone there – in terms of looks, home life, etcetera – than I had been back in the Philippines. It was obvious this was home and I appreciated that. My parents clearly were back in their element and our family life had a natural rhythm to it.

So it was home – HOWEVER I had an American accent, and moving from the American school to the Indian one, I failed every single subject in my first term except for English… so that sort of set me apart. Now, there is no doubt I think of India as home but also I think of the UK as home because I have my home here with my family. Again, I’m a bit at home and a bit not at home in both.

Being a well-travelled comedian, I am guessing the contrasting worldviews of different countries (e.g. India and the UK) informs a lot of your comedy…? What sorts of contrasts have you found?
There are several – but a really clear one comes to mind.
I think Indian audiences, by and large, baulk at very blue material in a way even the most genteel UK audiences don’t/wouldn’t. The UK genteel audience might not like it but they wouldn’t be grossly shocked or horrified that anyone could say such things because what is said in public and at home is more liberal in the UK.
Sex is such a differently handled topic (which a lot of the time means simply not addressed at all whatsoever) topic in India that the context for very blue jokes simply doesn’t exist. I don’t do much super-blue material, but whatever I do I think I’d have to pare back A LOT for Indian audiences.

Whenever I’ve watched comedy in India I’ve seen that comics as well as audiences are more relaxed around religious jokes, because India has had many different religions co-existing relatively peacefully for millennia. Current politics has created sharp and deep divides, sure, but that doesn’t change the historical reality of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Baha’is, Jains all feeling INDIAN first and anything else second, over a very very long period of time. So this allows for quite fertile fun poking between different communities without anyone feeling othered in a damaging way.

Sindhu Vee: Sandhog Feb 6, the Comedy Box at the Hen & Chicken Studio. For more info, visit www.thecomedybox.co.uk/site/301.asp?catID=1790&ct=date

Read more: Interview: Olga Koch (The Comedy Box, Feb 10)