Fresh from her international tour and critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run, produced by Daniel Sloss and presented by Hasan Minhaj, Forbes 30 Under 30 cover star Abby Govindan comes to the UK, including a run at the Edinburgh Fringe, with Pushing 30, her new show about dating, ageing and breaking generational curses.
Every generation of woman in Abby’s family had arranged marriages, against a general background of regressive notions of “educate your sons, marry off your daughters.” But Abby had the rarest of things, a progressive grandfather, and so her mother blazed a trail to study at medical school in South India. Despite this breakout moment in her family history, Abby still gets asked when she is going to get married and have kids. The answer? Don’t hold your breath - dating is rigged!
Diving into Big Tech’s vice-like grip on dating apps, Abby explains how their mission statement changed from matchmaking to keeping users, and how manosphere-fuelled engagement has driven a wedge between generations and genders. Now, through her signature storytelling style that got her international acclaim, she shows us how no one is safe from falling for misinformation on the internet.
Abby Govindan is a New York-based 28-year-old stand-up/writer. She started in comedy at the age of 20 and within a year had gone viral. She has now amassed over 300,000 followers across social media platforms.
Abby Govindan: Pushing 30 comes to Underbelly Boulevard in London on Friday 19th June, details here, then Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh on Saturday 20th June, tickets here before Abby's debut run at the Edinburgh Fringe where it will play the Pleasance Courtyard (Baby Grand), all details here.
What irritates you?
Apolitical people
What is the most stupid thing you have ever done?
Pursue stand up comedy during a recession.
What has surprised you the most during your career in comedy?
I've always only ever written shows that I needed for myself, I guess I continue to be blown away that people resonate with them and there is an appetite for my incredibly specific niche of storytelling comedy.
What do your parents think of your job?
They're so proud of me! That surprises a lot of people because they're Indian and they work in medicine and tech, but I really hit the jackpot with such lovely and supportive parents. I only hope I can be even 10% as good of a mom as my parents are to me!
What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?
Money troubles, impossible to date when I'm traveling so often.
I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?
I am one of the youngest touring comedians in the world and one of the only women of colour my age doing this! I appreciate how much grit, tenacity, and hard work I've put in to get where I am. That being said, I know I still have such a long way to go! I see older comedians perform so well and feel envy that my stage presence isn't as honed as theirs. I'm so excited to become even better than I already am.
How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?
I think I'm clocking in at under 40k USD, and I'd love to earn enough to just take a month off. My ideal salary would be like... 100k.
How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?
Big time! I was lucky enough to pursue this early on when there was an appetite for a young South Asian woman in comedy. I was lucky enough to go viral at a young age at a time when going viral still meant something. Luck is such a big part of a career in comedy.
Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into third category?
I'm a golfer for sure. I always hated the saying "my trauma makes me funny." I am funny, period. I don't need to romanticize my trauma or the terrible things that people did to me to pathologize what happened to me. I can process horrific events and move on with life, but I would have been funny even if my trauma never happened to me. I refuse to let my darkest moments consume me or define me and I will never let the pursuit of art affect my relationship with my sense of self.
Who is your favourite person ever and why – not including family or friends or other comedians?
The person I'm about to say is a friend, but I was a fan of hers before she followed me back on instagram so it counts! I'm gonna have to lock in my answer as Kat Tenbarge. She's constantly being doxxed and harassed even though she's doing amazing journalism work. She's a prodigy; she won awards at such a young age for her early coverage of scandals among YouTubers when no one else was talking about it.
She was one of the first journalists to cover the Depp/Heard trial in depth. She just does such amazing work for gender equality and raising awareness about internet misinformation campaigns. As a comedian, I will never speak nearly as much truth to power as she does but gosh! I'm so inspired by her work, and I will at least try!
Do you keep your drawers tidy and if not why not? (please think long and hard about this question, it's to settle an argument with my girlfriend. The future of our relationship could depend on your response).
They're always tidy for about two days before I look through them for something and then it's misaligned until the next time I get my life together and tidy up.
AND NOW THE OPTIONAL BONUS BALL QUESTION...I've asked you 13 questions, now you get to choose a question you can ask about yourself and then answer. It could be "Why do you comedy?" it could be "Do you have any pension advice?" Or it can be anything in between. Seriously. Anything at all. I look forward to your answer.
Question for myself: you've been single for almost 3 (mostly sexless) years, how have you stayed sane during that time?
Every time a man disappoints me early on in our dating journey I just picture my future daughter yelling at me for having such low standards for myself and that's done the trick pretty well. I can't let little Meena down! I allowed some pretty terrible things to happen to me when I was just dating for myself, but as I've gotten older I realized that the man sitting across the dinner table from me might be the father of my future child.
That's a very important and high-stakes decision, for some reason I set better boundaries around a non-existent daughter than I do for myself but hey, whatever works!
Abby Govindan: Pushing 30 comes to Underbelly Boulevard in London on Friday 19th June, details here, then Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh on Saturday 20th June, tickets here before Abby's debut run at the Edinburgh Fringe where it will play the Pleasance Courtyard (Baby Grand), all details here.
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