Comedy club battles could leave everyone laughing
A turf war of sorts has been bubbling away on Hong Kong's comedy circuit, but the payoff may just leave everyone in a better humour, writes Jonathan Maloney
Some things just aren't funny - even to a comedian.
For example, meet stand-up comic Chris Musni, who says he was banned from SoHo's TakeOut Comedy Club after reaching out to another promoter. Instead of getting too down in the dumps, Musni went on to set up Brew Ha Ha, a regular comedy night held in the Hong Kong Brew House in Lan Kwai Fong.
Even with this, there's no denying the local stand-up scene has been shaken up by the arrival of the TakeOut Comedy Club. Launched by Jami Gong six years ago after he arrived from Chinatown in New York City, TakeOut has gone on to dominate the amateur scene with weekly shows in English and Cantonese, comedy classes and a newly opened branch in Shenzhen.
"The scene is growing here and around Asia," says the loquacious Gong. "It's amazing to see our comedians progress and get better and funnier. We are getting more people coming to watch us and, as a result, we started weekly Chinese shows this year."
When you add its shows in Singapore and Shanghai, and its headline acts appearing at the MGM Macau, TakeOut Comedy Club appears to be doing everything right. Before Gong and his disciples came along, Hong Kong lacked a definitive homegrown stand-up scene. While the Punchline Comedy Club has been running for almost 20 years with a strictly international line-up, TakeOut appears to be taking a different approach by throwing everything except the kitchen sink at the comedy scene in Hong Kong.