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Almost Famous, Russell Peters

Feb 27 2015.

On the Colombo leg of his Almost Famous world tour, Russel Peters makes Colombo laugh with his caustic humour!

Russell Peters is at the top of his game, there is no doubt about that. After an arguably damp squib of a performance last year in Colombo, Russell returned and last night he was on fire! Having performed to sell out gigs all over the world including London's O2 arena and Madison Square Gardens this Canadian born comedy star of Indian origin's gig at the Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre as part of his Almost Famous world tour on Wednesday was super, nay excellent.

His sense of humour may not appeal to everyone's taste but the droves of die hard Peters fans at the SLECC were in comedy heaven as he rattled off gag after gag with seeming ease. The entree for the evening, warm up act, Greg Rogell executed his task well by loosening up the audience with his wit covering a range of topics which poked fun at Jews, Americans and so many others!

After half an hour of Rogell, the crowd by this time were gagging (no pun intended!) for Peters. Stand up comedy is not easy but Russel Peters has mastered it to a tee. The way in which he homes in on a member of the audience and manages to make a huge joke about a seemingly innocuous thing as someone's name and then goes on to create more jokes from that, is a talent which Peters certainly has.

This amiable Canadian has gathered a global fan base through his inimitable sense of comedy which is performing relatable material consisting mostly of stream of consciousness storytelling while working the audience.

He particularly loves talking to the first few rows and uses audience members as bait to garner laughs. While some may frown at this sense and style of comedy, for Peters' fans it is pure comedy gold. Wednesday's show saw Russel homing in on Tony, a Sri Lankan from London who emerged the effortless star of the night thanks to Russell taking the mickey out of him for the manner in which he spoke, his responses and the blank expression Tony had. Another mum and son duo were lampooned as he made the audience giggle with his wry observations on masturbation, as the son revealed his mum had got him a mobile phone at the age of 13 which Peters said was akin to the mum handing over an unending source of adult material to the young lad via the phone.

Russell's dialogue with Mark, a South African in the audience yielded much laughs which demonstrated his superb ability to mimic accents. He had the audience in fits of laughter as he imitated accents and languages. Peter's ability to flip through sound effects was evident when he gave the audience his impression of the Russian language as a language spoken backwards. His sentences in Russian which he rabbited on at break neck speed resulted in a series of unintelligible sentences proving that parodying accents is another of his talents.

Peters was at his best when he was chatting up the front rows, when he noticed a young Indian lad with his turban clad dad (wear a turban and sit in the front row of a Peters' concert and you don't escape unscathed!) and mocked the boy's dad by remarking "good parenting skills" in a sardonic reference to Peter's profanity laced material which featured heavily during Peter's one hour long session.

His Indo-Canadian heritage helps Peters get away with more than his fair share of humour especially targeting anything that is Indian. From the poo littered streets in India to the die hard ambitions of Indian mums who force their sons to be doctors, all perfect fodder for Peters' brand of caustic humour.

Armed only with his mic and mouth Russell Peters let the jokes flow faster than the cascading waters of his native Niagara Falls that had Colombo's sides aching with laughter and confirming his position as Forbes' third highest grossing comedian.

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