We’ve never reviewed a comedy act here at Hindu Voice, so I figured we might as well start with the one of the Canadian-Indian (or as they say it over there in the “New World” - East Indian) stand-up comedian Russell Peters’ ‘Outsourced’. Now in case you’re wondering why he’s called Russell Peters if he’s Indian, he’d say “…the British were there for 400 years man…If they can take all our jewellery, they can screw a few of us”, leave some names behind. “If I had an Indian name, I’d wear it proudly. But all I got is the Russell Dominic Peters. I have an Italian middle name!” So if you have a problem with his name, go tell his parents – Eric and Maureen.

In a typical act half of Peters’ jokes are based on his observations of different cultures and their stereotypes. And though not really for people who’re the sensitive type, they’re usually funny as anything. So if you wanna sit through his act, you can’t go and get offended if it takes the piss outta you – or anyone else. As he’d say “I don’t make the stereotypes, I just observe them”. The jokes in Outsourced in particular, range from cultural names to his adventures in KFC in China to different ways that oriental people speak English (“Vietnamese speak it so fast, they act like they know it, Koreans speak it like they are out of breath, Chinese speak it like they are chopping vegetables” etc.) and a lot more. He is a master at mimicking voices and accents of different people and anytime he does it is usually a treat. He also engages in conversation with the crowd usually, so his acts have a sense of spontaneity to them.

The other half of his jokes are about his dad, who emigrated from India to Canada and after fifty years of living there, has turned into a redneck. One of his catch phrases “somebody gonna get a hurt real bad” is in fact a threat that his dad always made right before he “beat his ass”. If fact he mentions in Outsourced that he’s gonna do this joke for the last time and then he was gonna retire it (NOT HIMSELF like some people thought, but the JOKE; he’s gonna retire this particular joke). The reason was that his dad passed away a bit before Outsourced was released on DVD.

So having nothing but good to say about him, do I recommend you to buy the DVD? I dunno man, you’re gonna have to make up your own damn mind. The jokes are great but the whole thing’s only 80 minutes and it was like twenty quid in HMV when I got it. Hopefully it’ll come down in price. In the meantime, if you type in his name on google, you get a whole 45 minutes act on youtube from another one of his shows. So check that out.

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