Sumukhi Suresh ‘s much-loved stand-up comedy special Hoemonal is now on Netflix. From the chaos of being a woman in her 30s, tackling singlehood, relationships with parents, dating experiences and more, Sumukhi Suresh doesn’t hold back. In an exclusive interaction with HT right before its premiere on Netflix, Sumukhi spoke about the journey with Hoemonal, the space for more female comedians and what’s next for her.
When Kim [Sharma] started producing the show in 2024, the show became much more than just being a performance on stage. What surprised me was the fact that even though Hoemonal was doing well in terms of numbers, but 2024 onwards it moved to around 5,000 tickets in Bengaluru! Because we gave it to Netflix, but I think that’s just as exciting, but we couldn’t make it to the US tour. We sold 2,000 tickets at NMACC at the grand theatre, and we were one of the first shows to be on it as a stand-up show, so that was exciting. The value of the show increased with a great producer on board, so that really helped.
Any show that goes from live to platform, the fear is that it will lose its charm, it will lose what it stands for, and it will have to be changed. But that wasn’t the case, thankfully. It became a brand, a sort of property that one is part of… a sense of community. So when Kim took it to Netflix, it not only became a stand-up show that we are telling them, but a community that follows it. So it was exciting to see the show on Netflix and observe so many new people enter that community as it goes out on this platform. I didn’t conceptualise it as a sketch, but as a stand-up show. The tour of the show, of course, has been very good not only in the national chain, but we also took it to the Melbourne Comedy Festival, then we did an exhaustive Asian Tour. Maybe post its release, we will do a US one! I was very surprised, but more than that I was really excited to see how the show became bigger than just a show in the last two years! I have always believed that I have to be a lot of things to be one good artist. That’s why I try to do when I do stand-up or acting or writing or creating a show. Now, I would like to see if I could be someone who could write a mainstream Hindi movie! Which would be a theatrical, convert that… or go back to the place where a comedy-related piece makes it to the theatres and does wonders! That would be great. I would love to that. Also, just to get into the space for creating more shows, more comedies. I am a big fan of comedy web series and that will hopefully be my next step. Fiction is my favourite, I will always stick to that!
