Long Read: Laughter, the best medicine?
(Reuters file)
‘Laughing brings up the oxygen levels’
Earlier this month, British actress Helen McCrory passed away at 52. Cancer (not Covid) got to her. Sometime later, her devastated husband (actor) Damian Lewis penned a tribute to her in The Sunday Times; he started out with, “As I sit down to write this, I can hear Helen shouting from the bed, ‘Keep it short, Damian, it’s not about you’.” As he went on to add how she’d been “utterly heroic in her illness”, the first attribute he accorded her was “funny”, before listing out “generous, brave, uncomplaining, constantly reminding us all of how lucky we’ve been, how blessed we are”. “[She] Made them [everyone around her] laugh, always. There were few funnier people she was funny as hell.” Cancer ravaged her, but her funny bones didn’t creak: she had her sense of humour intact till the very end. “Only a couple of weeks ago she said to us [Damian and the
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As the only active Filipino comic performing in English in the UAE, one would assume Imah Dumagay would have the run of the house. But that distinction has not led to a full-time career in stand-up, even after three years in the business.
“Stand-up is booming, but you cannot make a living out of this,” says Dumagay, who works as an executive secretary in Dubai. “Here, it’s just a hobby and pastime for most comedians.”
Still, that has not stopped the 37-year-old from passionately pursuing what she calls her “true love” – making people laugh. And it’s something the world desperately needs in the middle of a pandemic, she says.