Calcutta got a chance to spend a Sunday evening doing something different — not catching the latest flick at the plex or digging into dinner at a favourite restaurant, but having a good laugh.

A motley crew of four young men from Delhi took over the ballroom at The Lalit Great Eastern on November 9 and had the audience in splits, all for 90 minutes, at the Stand-Up Comedy evening, by Humour Me, a Delhi-based company.

Dhruv Sachdeva, Clifford Afonso, Farhad Colabavala and Shantanu Anam took turns to come up on stage and regale the audience with wit and humour, starting off with their experience in the city they’d visited for the first time. From heading over to the nearest pub for beer— “there’s no punchline here if you are waiting for it”— to encountering a rock lover in a nightclub elevator who questioned Clifford on his ‘rock-star length’ hair, to ending their show with a song called Manju, Won’t You Strip For Me?, everything came together to culminate in the kind of evening that had everyone wanting more.

Glimpses.

He’s being hailed as the rising star of Indian Improv and Punjabi munda Dhruv Sachdeva did the title no injustice with his brand of humour. Also the emcee for the show, his jokes were replete with character sketches of the quintessential Punjabi munda who “gyms 24x7, but you will be lucky if I remember my name”, and Count Mandeep Singh, the Vampire Sardar, accompanied by ominous bhangra music, who asks the exorcist to mix the Holy Water in a Patiala peg!

“So obviously, the good looks have arrived!” is how Shantanu Anam introduced himself, on stage for a set that was short and sweet. Raised in a “Left-leaning, slightly educated family”, Calcutta, for him, was the place to be. The “darker” Delhi guy also took a dig at Salman Khan and “seeing him go through all stages of ‘being human’ in his life”— from the dance steps to getting arrested, jailed and bailed — before moving on to the shady inbox messages that girls receive on Facebook.

The travails of a Delhi boy with an Anglo-Indian mother and a Goan father was the note Clifford Afonso picked up on, describing a day in his life living with the parents. “They don’t know I am making fun of them here, so could you please comfort me with a louder round of applause?” he implored.

Clifford was especially good with his imitation of the voice-over guy from the Hollywood movie trailers and the Bollywood counterpart, who dubs over the English. Our favourite from the night!

What’s it like for a Parsi boy who does a masters in finance abroad and then comes back to India to inform his father that he was interested in joining theatre, and had bagged a gig playing a cross-dresser on stage?

Farhad Colabavala regaled the audience with funny anecdotes from his life, especially that moment when he meets a beautiful Parsi girl — “a rarity” — and she recognises him as the cross-dresser!

Friends (L-R) Anshuman Jhunjhunwala, Rishu Puri, Sumit Arora came to know of the event from t2 and immediately booked their tickets. “I’ve attended a lot of comedy evenings before but this was the best, by far. We especially liked Clifford Afonso’s voice-overs — he was so good!” said Anshuman, a chartered accountant working with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Some of the loudest laughs came from Rakhi Purnima Dasgupta (left) of Kewpie’s and her friends Kiron Briggs and Neela Majumdar. “There were certain cultural references that I couldn’t understand, like who was Bappi Lahiri, but Rakhi and Neela updated me on all I needed to know. It was such a laugh after that!” said Kiron, who lives in London.

“Calcutta doesn’t usually have anything interesting happening, which is why I jumped at the idea of a stand-up comedy evening. Also the fact that this was the first time we heard these guys — the idea was very refreshing,” said Neha Bhatnagar, who especially liked Shantanu Anam. “His set was short but it had me in splits!” smiled the entrepreneur.