Comedian Suraj Kolarkar can remember the exact date when he performed at his first stand-up comedy open mic.
“26 November 2016. A Saturday night gig,” he remembers. “The first 10 seconds I was up there, my right knee was almost buckling, I didn’t know where to hold the microphone, it was a complete mess. But when you get that first laugh, that rush powers you through it.”
Laughter has proven to be a powerful source of energy for the Sydney-based Kolarkar. He has travelled across Australia performing comedy, hosted the SBS Podcast , and starred in Netflix’s God’s Favourite Idiot, Apple TV’s Shantaram, and SBS’ gameshow . But an important launching pad for Kolarkar was the RAW Comedy Festival.
Nazeem Hussain, Suraj Kolarkar and Becky Lucas playing for Australia on ‘Patriot Brains’. Credit: SBS
Since beginning in 1996, the RAW Comedy Festival has become a rite of passage for Australian comedians and the place for comedy fans to see future Australian stars. Every year, from January through to March, comedians compete across several heats in their home states – some having performed comedy for a while, others making their debut at a RAW heat.
After the heats, each state and territory have semi-finals and a final, where the winner is sent off to perform at the competition’s grand final, held during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at Melbourne Town Hall. Comedians who have performed at the grand final include Hannah Gadsby, Josh Thomas, Becky Lucas, Ronny Cheng, and even Tom Gaynor, aka rapper Allday.
This year’s edition, hosted by Dilruk Jayasinha and screening on SBS, saw 13 new comedians from across Australia performing their best five minutes of material to an audience of 1400. It’s a daunting prospect, and it’s one Kolarkar went through in 2019.
Comedian Dilruk Jayasinha on stage hosting the RAW Comedy Festival 2023. Credit: RAW Comedy Festival 2023
After performing “half-a-dozen gigs”, Kolarkar entered RAW Comedy for the first time in 2017 when he learned about it from other open mic comedians. That first experience allowed him to prove to himself that he had a knack for comedy.
“I got through to the semi-finals, which provided a [confidence boost],” he says. “My previous background was as a civil engineer. So, you do the maths, you do the physics, you get these grades – it’s all very cemented in how you progress through a thing. In comedy or any artistic endeavour in general, it’s so abstract; you don’t know if you’re improving, if you’re getting worse, [or] if you’re even any good at it. So, having some structure like the structure of RAW – some recognition that you might be alright at this – it definitely gives you some confidence in those initial stages.”
After spending the rest of 2017 performing at open mics across Brisbane and honing his craft, Kolarkar entered RAW again in 2018. This time, he progressed all the way to the Queensland state finals. Despite the achievement, he couldn’t help but question his performance.
In comedy or any artistic endeavour in general, it’s so abstract; you don’t know if you’re improving, if you’re getting worse… so having some structure like RAW, it definitely gives you some confidence.Suraj Kolarkar
“[Going into RAW 2018] was probably when I was most at my most overconfident,” he admits. “It’s like the Dunning-Kruger Effect where you start something and you’re okay at it in the beginning and your confidence shoots up. [But as] you learn more about it, [your confidence] dips because you realise how little you know about it. Basically, even though I got through to the state final, I was like, ‘I feel I really should have gotten through to the grand final’. But I wasn’t doing a set that warranted getting through to the grand final. That was a fun way of learning to let things take their course and don’t try to push too hard.”
According to their , every RAW entrant is entitled to a maximum of three attempts at the competition, unless you’ve been in the national final or two state finals. So, 2019 was Kolarkar’s last chance. Along with growing as a comedian, he grew as a person and approached it less seriously. This time, not only did he make it through to the grand final, but he was also awarded the 2019 runner-up for his sharp .
Suraj Kolarkar was awarded runner-up for his performance at the 2019 RAW Comedy Festival. Credit: Jim Lee Photo
“I was excited,” he says. “I think the audience was 1400 people, which is five times bigger than anything I’d ever done. I was excited to just have fun, and I knew just from playing rooms of 10 people or 100 people that usually if there’s a bigger crowd the gig is actually easier because laughter is contagious. I knew that if I went out and just had fun, it would be a good time.”
Not long after his success at RAW, Kolarkar decided that comedy was the thing he wanted to do with his life, moving to Sydney to pursue his dream.
“I remember when I left my permanent government engineering job in Brisbane to go to Sydney, unemployed, and with little money, my manager at my job told me, ‘This is a very dumb thing you’re doing’. [But] I design the architecture of my jokes much better than any buildings I tried to design,” he laughs.
Just as it has done for other Australian comedians, the RAW Comedy Festival has changed Kolarkar’s life, and will likely do the same for the 2023 national finalists. For those who watch the 2023 final and get the urge, entries for RAW 2024 open at the end of this year. For anyone who decides to enter, Kolarkar says the best advice is to relax.
“Stand-up is hard enough without the competition element added into it,” he says. “I think just relaxing and not stressing, ‘I have to get this, and then that will mean this happens, and that means this happens’. That linear career progression that you see in jobs like engineering doesn’t exist in comedy. There’s other ways you can make things happen. Use it as a way to work on a five-minute set for an extended period of time. Learning those habits along the way is probably one of the ways that helps people.”
Raw Comedy Festival 2023 premieres at 9.25pm, Saturday 22 July on SBS VICELAND. It will also be available to stream from 22 July.
