One Mic Stand writers room on making stand-up sets for celebrities, and training them to be 'losers' on stage

Many people might not know this about stand-up comedy, but there are two basic rules that every comedian follows. One, every comedian must write their own jokes. And two, they must spend months, often years, going on stage with the same jokes, gradually fine-tuning and polishing both the writing and the delivery. Neither of them is true for One Mic Stand.One Mic Stand Season 2 comes after a successful first instalment. The show involves celebrities from different spheres like music, movies, and journalism, trying out comedy for the first time. Filmmaker Karan Johar, journalist Faye D'Souza, author Chetan Bhagat, actress Sunny Leone, and rapper Raftaar will be seen in the latest season. Sapan Verma, stand-up comedian and showrunner, speaks to us about the process of getting this show together, along with some members from his rotating writing team: Dhruv Deshpande, Siddharth Dudeja, Aishwarya Mohanraj, Pavitra Shetty, and Urjita Wani.The writing team has a tough task of working on these episodes for months, researching celebrities, ideating on topics, and especially, writing the jokes. The last one is no mean feat since they have to write in someone else's voice and incorporate their perspective. There is a certain amount of training required to write for this show, Verma believes, adding that their experience of writing award shows for Bollywood celebrities puts them in good stead. The writing process is far more intense than writing your own jokes. "We go on stage every day, so we often go with just the setup and see where the joke goes," says Siddharth Dudeja. "But here, you have to be prepared with a proper setup, punchline, and tags."A lot of homework is involved, including watching countless celebrity interviews to understand their tone, language, and even the syntax and grammar they use, followed by meetings where the writers ask questions and get a sense of who the celebrity is as a person. Dhruv Deshpande, head writer, adds that one of the learnings from Season 1 was to go to the celebrity without too many jokes. "We just went with a few opening jokes as examples," he says, "And then we kept speaking to them and asking questions, unlike Season 1 where we went with some jokes, which might have set the tone and been limiting."It is not just the style but also the topics. What topics would the celebrity be comfortable making jokes on, and would the platform approve it? Verma believes that this show did not face too many issues since most of the bits are personal, but they had to keep the celebrities' preferences in mind. "Most of my feedback on the script would just be, 'HAHAHAHAHA yeh bahut funny hai par yeh woh nahin bolega,'" he says.The performance, too, is different from a regular stand-up set.

"When you're doing stand-up, you have to believe that you're not the most important person in the room. That's what we have to explain to the celebrities. Some get it easily, but for some, it's a struggle.

They have to believe that they're not rockstars here," says Deshpande. "You have to be the loser," Dudeja adds.[caption id="attachment_10071741" align="alignnone" width="640"]

Faye D'Souza in a still from One Mic Stand trailer[/caption]One big question is that since the celebrities will be doing it for the first time, how do they ensure that they will get laughs? "If Sapan finds it funny, we know it'll work," quips Urjita Wani, the latest addition to the writing team.Pavitra Shetty, another writer who has been involved with the show since the first season, adds that celebrities have one advantage. "The first barrier that's there to get the audience to like us is not there for them," she says. "The audience already likes them, and has context to their lives. Plus, they know they're doing it for the first time, so they're super supportive mostly," she says, though the team agrees that this advantage lasts only for the first few minutes. After that, you have to be genuinely funny, and win the audience's respect as a stand-up comic. However, Verma adds that it is okay if the set does not go perfectly. The aim is to show celebrities trying out the art form. It has to look like they are doing it for the first time. So it is okay if there are some fumbles or misses; that adds to the charm of the show.Like everything else this past year, this show, too, was affected by the pandemic, with tapings being postponed, and the availability of both the internal team and celebrities always in flux. However, the writing team did not let it affect them, looking at the bright spot that they could be more productive from home rather than being stuck in traffic for hours. They missed meeting the celebrities, though, and had to make do with video calls and online rehearsals, something they do not feel great about because they have picked up quite a lot from the celebrities over the seasons.Verma speaks about Richa Chaddha in the first season, whose approach to the performance of the jokes brought in a new perspective for him. Similarly, Faye D'Souza insisted on several rehearsals, trying to get every bit of the tone correct. Sumukhi Suresh, a celebrity mentor in the episode with Karan Johar, says that her faith in hard work and hustling was reinstated after working with him. Aishwarya Mohanraj, writer and stand-up comedian, talks about her interaction with Sunny Leone.

"I thought Sunny would shy away from talking about certain things. But when we wrote our first draft, we just went ahead, no holds barred. And I was very pleasantly surprised by what all she was totally okay to talk about, and the insights she was okay discussing on stage. A lot of times, when I talk about certain things (like sex or periods), my first response is, "Haan toh main baat kara? So what?" But here she was owning it. She didn't look at it as something to be ashamed of, and then talk about it. I don't think I thought about it consciously, but it left an impression," says Mohanraj.One of my main motivations to reach out to the writing team was to understand how a comedy writing team works; an integral part of the BTS process that we don't usually see. This writing room worked together for more than a year, often without clarity on dates, celebrities, and whether the show would be happening at all. They tried out different styles of working over the two seasons, eventually settling on working from home for a few days and coming back with concrete jokes to discuss, rather than trying to come up with jokes on the spot. However, they were all praise for each other. For Wani, the room could not have been better. "Joke writing is such a personal and vulnerable process because your first drafts are always bad, and you still have to put it down. So it's very important to have trusted people who won't judge you," she says. "Nine out of 10 jokes get rejected in the writers' room. You have to put your ego aside," says Verma, adding that it is crucial to make people feel comfortable so they do not shy away from voicing their opinion.Finally, who do these writers want to work with next time? The answers range from Smriti Irani to Rahul Gandhi to Abhishek Bachchan, though there is a definite interest in getting sportspeople next time since that is a genre missing from the show. Sachin Tendulkar, Sania Mirza, and PV Sindhu were all mentioned. Though, the final answer was unanimous — Shah Rukh Khan. Here is hoping they check all the boxes!One Mic Stand Season 2 will premiere on Amazon Prime Video India on 22 October.Shreemayee Das is a writer and a stand-up comedian. She writes mostly on cinema and culture. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @weepli.