Cracking Wise with Andy Curtain, the Godfather of Comedy in China, Ahead of Oct 12 Salud Set

Cracking Wise With the "Godfather of Comedy in China" Andy Curtain

Kyle Mullin | Oct 10, 2018 10:00 am | 1 comment | 3722 reads

Don’t let the silly one-liners fool you. Sure, Andy Curtain (slated to perform at Salud on Oct 12) has tickled the ribs of Shanghai comedy fans for years, with raunchy jokes about aged Chinese men blow drying their hair (all of it) at local gyms, and his wry observations about the disposition of those senior citizens (“elderly Chinese men are very fragile when they aren’t cutting in line”).

But it hasn’t all been fun and games. The Melbourne funnyman has put serious work into building Shanghai’s comedy scene, taking to the stage and organizing shows with other comics as early as 2010, and then luring hot international acts like Kate Willet and Ron Josol to perform in the Pearl City, Beijing, and other Chinese locales. From there, Curtain went on to open the Kung Fu Comedy venue in 2015, the first stand-up club on the Mainland. Then there’s the Mamahuhu Youtube channel that he and his fellow comedians founded a few years back, netting tens of millions of views by mining the culture clashes between China and the West for comedic gold.

Ahead of his Oct 12 show at Salud Curtain tells us more about bridging cultural divides with giggles, how pleasantly surprised he was to see Shanghai’s comedy scene gain momentum, and why he expects every Beijing gig to be lewd, crude, low down and dirty.

You’ve been called godfather of China's English language comedy. How do you deal with the pressure that must come with such a prestigious title?
Wow, I've never heard myself referred to as the Godfather of Comedy. But I have been called the Cruella Deville of comedy many times. I'll settle for the drunk uncle of comedy.

I think you’ve earned those titles because you’ve produced comedy shows in bars across China since 2010. How does it feel to look back on all that?
Wait, aren't godfathers those guys who do nothing to earn the title, and are then completely emotionally unavailable when needed? There might be something to this.

Kidding aside, we really didn't plan the scene to blow up the way it has. We were a group of people who liked jokes and needed a 90-minute break from drinking all the time.

From there you opened the Kung Fu Comedy Club in 2015. What was that like?
Opening the club was carnage. The memory's a total blur. It was built in two intense weeks of construction where I basically lived on site and realized quickly how insufficient my Chinese was to direct a team of construction workers

I made so many mistakes. We never had a design for the build. After the walls went up, I asked the builder where the power plugs are, and he said: “These are things you need to tell me before I build things!” So we had to take parts of the walls back down. I was just constantly pointing at stuff and saying: “Build this here.”

Your luck improved afterward though. Most interesting of all: there’s been plenty of buzz about how English standup shows in China are attracting more and more Chinese fans who have been exposed to comedy while living abroad. How exciting was it to realize you were gaining a foothold with that demographic?
Building a Chinese audience has always been the far more interesting development. Mamahuhu always stood out because it lived in that space between the cultures, and the club is still trending that way. It is ripe for comedy

Did this shift in audience demographics lead to funny moments of crowd work with Chinese audience members?
[Laughs] Yeah, sometimes you think "Wow, this person's not having a good time.” Then you find out they don't speak a word of English.

How does it feel to perform in Beijing as a standup based in Shanghai? What are the key differences between both cities’ standup scenes?
I first performed in Beijing in December 2012. I headlined a charity show and before I went on there were strippers. I didn't go back for a while so I wrongly assumed all Beijing comedy shows had boobs in them.

I think Beijing audiences are more fun, smarter and on average more attractive than Shanghai audiences. And when I do this interview in Shanghai I'm going to switch that sentence around.

Got the giggles? Check out our side-splitting Q&As with other comics here.