Since reaching the finals in the 2014 Funny Women Awards Sindhu Vee has racked up some impressive credits, appearing on QI, Have I Got News For You, hosting BBC Radio 4 Comedy of the Week Podcast and her own Radio 4 comedy series Sindhustan. Being so busy it’s not surprising she is only just bringing her debut hour, Sandhog, to the Edinburgh Fringe this year! Our editor Kate Stone found a gap in Sindhu’s schedule to chat about her show…
Kate Stone: Tell us about your show Sandhog
Sindhu Vee: It’s my debut hour at Edinburgh (so thrilling!), it’s at the Pleasance (amazing!) and it’s at 4:30pm, (superb – I can have a nap after lunch AND drink all evening without worrying about how any of this affects my show!).
The show itself is about how difficult it is to STAY married, how you love your kids SO MUCH it sucks but how, ultimately it’s all about LOVE and nothing worthwhile was ever easy, so hey, best get on board. If we didn’t laugh at some (all) of the excruciating self-abnegation and compromise that truly loving anyone requires, love would actually kill us or we’d be like tigers in the jungle – solitary. I know many other animals are also solitary but I went with tiger because it’s majestic and at least maybe we would have that. Sorry for rambling.
KS: Why did you decide to call it Sandhog?!
SV: You have to see the show to understand — that’s like asking if Emily Blunt is the killer in Girl on the Train and you haven’t seen the movie… just to be clear – there is no killing in my show.
KS: A lot’s happened since we first met you at the 2014 Funny Women Awards! Did you expect your comedy career to take off like this?
SV: No. I did, however, know with 100% certainty that I would keep gigging. I guess I wasn’t thinking of the ‘take-offy’ stuff… I was thinking ‘how can I get more gigs mid-week?’
KS: Do you think it’s harder for mothers to balance family life with a comedy career?
SV: I think its more complicated, yes… as with any career that you undertake when you have kids. It’s a landscape of competing schedules/needs/requirements in which the kids always have top trumps. The late night aspect of working in comedy was hard to adjust to but where there is a will there is a way – also known as learning to sleep less and having a very robust roster of wonderful babysitters.
KS: Who are your favourite funny women?
SV: Far too many to list here so let me just say:
i) Carol Burnett was the first funny woman I knew of and I watched her show obsessively.
ii) Then there’s Wanda Sykes, Ellen, Jo Brand, Kathleen Madigan, Kirsten Wiig and on and on.
iii) This list would not be complete if I didn’t add my mother – she is an avid joke teller and I always admired how that magnetised people to her. Most of her jokes were what she called ‘non-veg’, i.e., non-vegetarian, i.e., lewd, we are strict Hindu vegetarians so non-veg is forbidden…you get the drift, but she told them to her friends with such aplomb. As a kid, I didn’t get the jokes but I definitely understood the aplomb.
Sindhu Vee, Sandhog is at the Pleasance Courtyard, The Attic at 16:30, 1st-26th August. For tickets and more information click here!
