Suchandrika Chakrabarti made her Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2022 with ‘I Miss Amy Winehouse,’ with Binge Fringe Magazine noting “her sneakily dark and political humour” woven through the show. This year, she’s returning to the Fringe with her second show, ‘Doomscrolling,’ which sold out at Camden Fringe and VAULT Festival.
Suchandrika started stand-up in 2020 and soon became a semi-finalist in the Funny Women Stage Awards that year, and was named ‘One to Watch’. She went on to become a finalist in the British Comedy Guide Pro Performance Awards 2020/1. Her career in broadcast comedy began with writing for Radio 4 topical comedy shows in 2020, and she broke into TV in 2023, writing on BBC One’s Have I Got News For You.
Tell us about your show?
It’s a version of me using my former career in journalism to figure out how our chronically-online era is affecting us, then trying to explain it to my niece, who is five. I resort to character comedy and props, then speculating wildly about the future, in an attempt to imagine what she’ll have to deal with when she’s my age.
Doom scrolling itself is pretty stressful – was making ‘Doomscrolling’ (the show) also stressful?
At times! Before I realised that my relationship with my niece is the heart of this show, I was trying to write jokes to keep up with the news, over the two-year development of this hour, that was very stressful and exhausting! Once I figured out that this show is about news, but is not topical comedy in itself, then it began to flow much more easily. Addressing my niece gives it this urgency and purpose, but also lets me play and try new things.
How does it feel to be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time?
I skipped it in 2023 so now I’m very excited to be back! I hope Mosque Kitchen is ready for me.
What else have you been working on?
Scripts (my first TV pilot was a quarterfinalist in the Female Pilot Club Script Call 2024), bits of TV and radio, running a monthly mixed-bill night in north London called Mock the Month, and if that wasn’t enough, inventing weird semi-improv shows called things like Liz Truss’s The Traitors. I have also been indulging myself and building my wig collection.
What do you love about comedy?
Oh so much! The sound of laughter at my tomfoolery, the freedom to play, the creativity of the people I’ve met through doing this, the chance to make an idle thought become a real thing.
Which funny women do you recommend seeing in Edinburgh this year?
I have a lot of people to see, they are Posey Mehta, Kate Cheka, Amy Annette, Lil Wenker, Nerine Skinner, Sooz Kempner, Elf Lyons, Sikisa, Sarah Roberts, Rosalie Minnitt, Katie Pritchard, Vidya Divakaran, Maria Telnikoff.
Suchandrika Chakrabarti: Doomscrolling, 15 – 25 August at 3pm, at Hoots at Potterrow – Big Yurt. Book tickets here.
