Sumukhi Suresh And Naveen Richard On Their Favourite TV Shows

Comedy creator duo Sumukhi Suresh & Naveen Richard, known for shows like Go Straight Take Left, Better Life Foundation and Pushpavalli, discuss their favourite shows and how they've been influenced by them.

A Bit Of Fry And Laurie

Streaming On: YouTube

Naveen: It's a British sketch show from the 90s starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. It's one of those great shows you just stumble upon on YouTube and it's so much more subtle than a lot of sketch shows, but still exaggerated and silly. I remember we were really influenced by the in-between segments between the sketches. In some scenes Fry and Laurie would just start reading letters from the audience or start breaking the fourth wall which we tried to do on our live shows.

Sumukhi: It's something we did with the audience that came for our live shows which we used in between our sketches. When we finished a sketch, we'd go backstage to get ready for the next sketch and we'd make it look like our mics were still on and we'd be talking to each other backstage. So there'd be a parallel sketch going on backstage. I don't know if people really believed it, but it was fun for them to hear this parallel storyline.

Parks And Recreation

Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video

Sumukhi: As much as I love The Office, I prefer Parks And Rec, I'm just very partial to Amy Poehler. I discovered it when Naveen was working on Better Life Foundation, and that introduced me to this whole mockumentary universe and then I just went crazy for Parks and Rec. I love others shows like The Office but if I had to pick one, I'm like it's Amy, come on.

The Office

Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video

Naveen: There's a lot of shows The Office has inspired but they're just not the same because in those shows everybody is trying to get Michael Scott level of weird, but in The Office, only Michael Scott is Michael Scott level of weird, unlike season eight where everyone's dialled it up a bit. That tends to happen when you've written that many seasons where you've figured out the formula and it doesn't have the same impact.

It's the same reason I'm not a big fan of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I know I'm pushing many people's buttons with that, but, it's just like 'everybody tone it down just a little bit okay? I get it. You're funny, but don't get overconfident.'

Veep

Streaming On: Disney+ Hotstar Premium

Sumukhi: Veep just because Julia Louis Dreyfus. I wish I could be her. The show is just like a machine gun of jokes. It's very fast which is why I like it. It matches my pace of talking. But mainly Julia Louis Dreyfus.