Artist Perspective: Sachin Sharma, TOsketchfest
Hi, my name is Sachin Sharma, and I love mimicking people I see in the everyday world. I’m a fan of clowns and clowning — of flops, of failure, of radical honesty on stage. When my partner Shreya and I perform as Two.2.Mango, we discover that we can do much more when we’re seen as two clowns.
Clowning comes with a tacit contract. A simple one: acceptance. The audience expects you to make them laugh. If you succeed, they laugh. If you fail, they love you — and wait for you to succeed. And often, clowns give them more than belly laughs. We offer surprises.
Our previous show, Colonial Circus, thrived on that. It made audiences slightly uncomfortable — and they loved it. They were constantly on a seesaw of tension and release. What a ride!
Our new show, Hansal & Geetal, draws from a different well. These characters are deeply emotional, grounded, and universal. Theatre allows us to bend time, space, gender, age, even species — and this is our attempt to channel our younger selves. There was a time when we both wanted to be two silly school kids on stage — the kind who can’t hold in their laughter in front of authority.
One sleepless night of doom-scrolling led us to a gem: a video of a teenager trying desperately to stay serious while delivering a speech in class. There is something universally funny about watching someone fight their own laughter. As he fails — as he gets angry at his friends, as his face scrambles to rearrange itself into seriousness — it only gets worse. The nervous shuffling of masks, expressions, and emotions.
Comedy gold.
As clowns, we love breaking the fourth wall. But here was a delicious challenge: what if we couldn’t? We placed our characters in situations where they must shuffle masks, swallow laughter, and struggle to stay composed — always trying and failing to conceal behind that fourth wall from the audience. We raised the stakes. These two class clowns must remain serious in front of their classmates… played by you, the audience. The onus is on the audience to make them laugh.
What a lovely game.
Living in a city like Toronto makes this even better. There are so many platforms to test and refine material in front of live audiences. We let these characters loose at cabarets, variety nights, and festivals. The response was electric. We knew we had found the heart of the piece. Now, we had to build the world around them.
Our work leans toward musicality more than strict narrative. Around this time, we were listening to DakhaBrakha — music that is haunting, playful, and deeply textured. Their sound helped us ask, “What are these kids afraid of? Why are they so desperate to be silly?”
The answer came from Shreya’s experience as a class clown in boarding school. These kids aren’t just performing for attention. They are afraid of being left behind. Afraid of being forgotten. Afraid of being alone.
And suddenly, the story deepened. And that’s when Hansal & Geetal found their name.
Like Hansel and Gretel, our two characters move through a world that feels slightly bigger — and sometimes scarier — than they are. In the fairy tale, the children are abandoned in the forest and must rely on each other to survive. Our Hansal and Geetal are not lost in woods, but in a classroom — a place that can feel just as perilous when you’re small and vulnerable. They, too, fear abandonment. They, too, cling to one another. Their silliness becomes their breadcrumbs — little trails of laughter they leave behind, hoping someone will follow.
Hoping they won’t disappear.
Hansal & Geetal is a narrative clown sketch show about the fear of abandonment. Two class clowns confront what lies beneath the laughter. It may make you laugh. It may make you cry. It may make you laugh again.
Come for the comedy. Stay for the surprise.
We’ve workshopped the show across Toronto and have presented it in full at the Etcetera Theatre in London, UK (four runs). The characters have appeared at The Talent Show, WTFestival, and various cabarets. Now we’re thrilled to bring a tighter 30-minute version to the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.
There is mime. There is clownspeak. There is English, Hindi, and Urdu. There is a lot of class clowning.
For 30 minutes, you will be our classmates.
Please don’t make us laugh.
Hansal & Geetal runs Thursday, March 12th and Friday, March 13th, 9:00 PM at The Theatre Centre, as a part of The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival. Tickets are available at torontosketchfest.com.
© Sachin Sharma, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
