British Comic Nish Kumar on How YouTube Helped Him Achieve Success Outside of the U.K.
But he sees emerging comedians like himself with slow-burn careers often getting their biggest boost globally from YouTube after years playing clubs big and small back home. 'I'm primarily known in North America because of a British show called Taskmaster, which people outside the UK watch on YouTube,' Kumar told The Hollywood Reporter while performing at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal.
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Re-runs of Taskmaster, a British comedy panel game show that included Kumar, have been viewed on YouTube as creator-driven online platforms increasingly disrupt the traditional media landscape, and podcasts like Crooked Media's Pod Save the UK, which Kumar co-hosts with cultural journalist Coco Khan, transform the audio space.
The podcast gig followed Kumar appearing on stage at a live London comedy show produced by Crooked Media, which was followed by that proverbial chance call from Hollywood. Soon after he walked off stage, he got a call from Los Angeles asking if he could be at a meeting in London in 20 minutes.
'And I was like, I'm already there. I'm literally in the audience. So I got pulled out of the crowd like Courteney Cox in the 'Dancing in the Dark' video,' Kumar recalled. Later, Crooked Media asked if he'd be interested in launching and hosting a British show, which he did.
Kumar's Pod Save the UK offers a weekly fix on U.K. politics. That means Kumar and co-host Khan got to cover the downfall of British prime minister Boris Johnson over his rule-breaking parties in No. 10 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
'In terms of historic failures of leadership, I think Johnson's conduct in the pandemic is one of those things that people will study for years,' Kumar says. But while the U.K.'s Conservative Party sent Johnson packing, Kumar has a take on why Donald Trump, also judged by many as a political buffoon whose erratic style endears him to followers, was restored to the White House for a second term.
'Trump has killed the broad church in the Republican Party. It's no longer a political party. It's a delivery system for a single man and that's a huge problem,' he insists.
As Nigel Farage, a protégé of Trump, challenges Britain's current Labor government in the polls, Kumar doesn't look forward to his Reform UK party coming to power to reinvigorate his political comedy.
'The thing with (Farage) and Trump is there is a shamelessness. It actually makes it harder to make fun of them. Politicians in theory are supposed to conduct themselves with a level of dignity that means there's something to prick for principles. Farage and Trump are congenitally shameless men,' Kumar said.
The Just For Laughs comedy festival continues through Sunday.
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