The serious side of laughter

The global crisis has spawned three Filipino comedy bars in Dubai, home to over 200,000 kabayans or compatriots.

The jokes are decidedly Filipino and most of the punchlines are in Tagalog. Everyone who gets in is reminded to get ready for friendly banter from around 10.30pm till the wee hours. "Yes, times are bad. But people still find a way to have a good laugh," said Vivian Economides, owner of the new Kanto (corner) at Majestic Hotel on Mankool Road in Bur Dubai.

This corner, along with Comedy Junction near the Al Mamzar area and Mizmo! on Rigga Road, offers a brief respite from the day's dilemmas.

Welcome relief

"We show people a way out of their problems — or their pesky banks," said Boyet Sanchez, the 40-something mainstay of Comedy Junction. Sanchez came to Dubai in 2007 to fill in for a comedienne friend. "Now I'm hooked on Dubai," he said.

Sanchez has shared the stage with hosts from erstwhile rival comedy joints in Manila. "We came from different places, but now we're family."

Regional jokes sell the most among Filipinos. The hosts' side comments draw the loudest howls as the audience is welcomed and then "grilled". "You just have to bring out the funny bone buried deep inside each mind," said Wendell Lou del Mar, a 30-plus Cebuano stand-up comedian.

Clowning around is no laughing matter, especially when the audience is more diverse, or at a time when people scrimp on expenses. At Mizmo! expatriates intermingle with Filipinos. "We offer an accessible laugh-out-loud platform for all — right in the middle of the city," said Mizmo!'s Manager Jeff Miscual. Reggie Sandoval, 37, Kanto's resident stand-up comedian, said unlike Manila's comedy joints, the set formula for picking up on people doesn't always work here. "You have to choose your words more carefully here — and here lies the challenge."

And while every Filipino comedy joint has its own brand of ribbing, they do have a common thread: music.

Stephen John Baja, 25, a Filipino-Ghanaian, dominates the karaoke time at Comedy Junction with his hip-hop and R‘n'B covers. And so do Obet's acoustic band at Kanto: their music frames the punchlines.

But even those lines do get stale after a while. So how do they keep their jokes fresh?

Spontaneous act

"We all just play it by ear … there's no set script," said Sanchez. "Canadian-Indian comedian Russell Peters is extremely successful because he apes no one but himself. The challenge is to develop one's own style instead of mimicking someone else's," Sanchez said.

So what's their biggest fulfilment? Wendell said: "It's seeing the big smile on the faces of people when they go home after our show."