Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa brings his dandy dialogues to the Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver
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It’s not hard to understand why Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa is a rising star on the international comedy circuit. From his rock-star dandy dress to his deadpan deconstructions of the state of the world and how we got there, the Sri Lankan comedian radiates a confident, detached cool.
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Rajapaksa makes his local debut on July 9 at the Vancouver Playhouse opening this year’s Indian Summer Festival, running July 9 – 19. Tickets are on sale now at indiansummerfest.ca.
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Fans are into a treat as they get Rajapaksa’s latest show, Paradise Gothic, as well as opening sets from on Canadian comedy ace Charlie Demers and musician Piu. Attendees are encouraged to dress to impress. Rajapaksa certainly will.
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The journey from open mic to intercontinental performances has been a gradual one for the comedian, who has been performing for nine years.
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“I did medical school to have a steady job that would allow me to leave Sri Lanka and discovered I really didn’t like medicine,” he said. “I also trained myself to be a software engineer which brought me to Berlin, where I started standup in the city’s vibrant open-mic scene. I’ve been living in London and, lately, am only working as a comedian.”
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In hit shows such as French Kiss Tunnel and Monsoon Season, he moves from global colonial to personal family history in near stream-of-consciousness narratives that range from topics such as Why Germans Love Recycling to an uproarious defence of tourism. He writes shows such as Paradise Gothic through a process of trial and error.
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“I start with ideas, develop the bits in short sets and smaller tours until it’s eventually 50 to 90 minutes long,” he said. “Once the material is at its best state I go on the long tour before recording the special. Then I jettison the whole thing, go through a few months of thinking I’m very, very bad at what I’m supposed to be good at and start the process over again.”
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He notes that the growth of the Internet has played a big role in how he and other international comics are discovered and build careers. The whole world seems to be laughing at humour coming from many different cultural starting points rather than a dominant post-colonial one.
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“I just came back from a string shows in Australia, but also Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore where I didn’t expect big audiences but there were,” he said. “In the past, that exposure would have required a distribution deal and so on, but now it’s just online everywhere. I’ve seen comedy become much more of a mainstream art form in the decade since I started due to streaming and I’m glad for it.”
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It’s fitting that Paradise Gothic is the work coming to the Indian Summer Festival this year. Rajapaksa says his latest show runs longer than usual since he had a lot to get off of his chest at this time and place in the world.
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The theme for 2026 festival is Ragas for a Ruptured World, so it’s a good fit. Indian Summer Festival executive director Am Johal says the annual themes have always been useful in the festival’s big-tent booking policy.
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“We begin each year with our curatorial theme before we send out any invitations, with the hope that the artists will see themselves and their work as being inside of it or at least help in their planning in what they might bring to the festival,” said Johal. “The festival has evolved in a way where our audiences want a really broad diversity of programming irrespective of origin. We’ve also benefited from a complex ecology of arts organizations like 5X, Monsoon Arts Festival and the Dhahan Punjabi language literature prize supporting local arts.”
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As the South Asian population in the Lower Mainland has developed, it has also become far more diverse. Johal notes that as the Pakistani, Bengali and other cultural groups have grown, so have calls for specific artists from those communities. It’s a win for Indian Summer Festival as it can continue expanding its scope.
