What Say?

Ventriloquist Paul Zerdin is never without the perfect one-liner,except that one time he stood before the Queen of England after a show. “It was just a hello,” he recalls. “It was easier with Prince Charles when I performed before him at the Royal Variety Show. He’s a patron of the performing arts and had many questions about puppets and ventriloquism,” Zerdin brightens up. In October,the 37-year-old ventriloquist,one of the best-known names in the UK,will travel to India with his puppet trio — a young boy called Sam,his grandfather Albert and a baby who is constantly hungry. The event,“Papa CJ and Friends: Featuring Paul Zerdin Live in India”,will be held in Delhi,Kolkata,Mumbai and Bangalore. And there will be no one to gag him.

Zerdin gives Sam the cocky dialogue,Albert the flirty pick-up lines and the baby an urgent bawl,all without moving his lips. “All you have to do to become a ventriloquist is practise for years,” says Zerdin,who learnt the art from a book. “I’d go to a park and pretend to be carrying a crying baby. People would turn around to look,and couldn’t believe their eyes when the ‘baby’ in my arms turns out to be a lunchbox. They keep wondering where the cry is coming from,” he says.

Zerdin’s acts are interactive — Albert chats up women in the front row and Sam inundates them with questions. Zerdin designed the puppets himself and his irreverent humour has worked crowds from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the British army camps in Afghanistan last year and Iraq four years ago. “The Ministry of Defence sends me on morale-boosting trips to war zones. In Kandahar and Kabul last year,we performed in helicopters and army vehicles surrounded by machine guns. I didn’t talk politics,just concentrated on taking the mickey out of the soldiers. Sometimes,I let the puppets take the mickey out of me,everybody enjoys that,” he says. One of his popular acts is to call a member of the audience on stage and turn her into “a human puppet”. “The voice appears to be coming from her,” he explains,adding that he can do “four or five different kinds of voices”.

The India trip,his first,has a personal significance: his father was with the air force in Calcutta during World War II. “I have toured other parts of Asia but India was always a dream destination,” he says.

The show will be held at NCUI Auditorium,August Kranti Marg,on October 7 and at Emporio Mall on October 11. For tickets,

log on to http://www.papacj.com