Gamarjobat - Japanese Comedy Duo On The BBC

[Mulboyne]

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Here in Britain, the BBC commissioned a TV series from Japanese "silent comedy" duo Gamarjobat which has just started now on BBC Three. I'd never heard of them before but it appears then have been drawing rave reviews for their performances across Europe over the last few years where they are probably more popular than in Japan. A couple of weeks ago, the Yomiuri ran an article about them, ahead of some Tokyo performances taking place now, which had a few interesting background details.

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"...Gamarjobat is a silent comedy duo of two Japanese men--yellow-mohawked Hiro-Pon and red-mohawked Ketch!--who make people laugh with their elaborate pantomimes and funny body gestures...Gamarjobat was established in 1999, and they took their name from their attempts to communicate with some Georgian children they met at a festival in Germany. Before then, Ketch! and Hiro-Pon performed independently. The rookie performers first met at the Asia Mime Festival in Nagano in 1995, where a group of young pantomimers were offered the chance to create a mime show. In the process, the two got along so well that they later became a duo. This year is their 10th anniversary..."

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...Ketch! assumes that there are three main reasons why Gamarjobat is accepted in Europe. "First, we are foreign actors. So they see us as actors playing all the way from Japan. Second, theater-going culture is deeply rooted in European countries. Finally--this is what I found when we played in Belgium--European nations are right next to each other but speak different languages...We played at an international festival whose audience came from different countries. After the show, an elderly woman told us: 'A group of people who can't communicate even with the person sitting next to them are all laughing at the same time. Do you know how great it is!?' And I thought it was impossible to feel that greatness [the sharing of common laughter beyond languages] in Japan, where 90 percent of the population share one language," he said...

[Sentakki Fried Chicken]

They were pretty good...which is saying a lot for me. I find mime artists grating. Most of the time I wish they'd just, er...shut up?

[taisaku]

I saw their show yesterday in Tokyo and was impressed by it. The first hour consisted of several short acts. Some interesting and clever, some less. After the break they performed a long play of 45 minutes based on the storyline of Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights". This part of the show was very impressive.