Sindhu Vee: “All I Want To Do Is Make People Laugh”
All Sindhu Vee wants to do is make people laugh. So it’s ironic when I find myself in tears within six minutes of our conversation. I’m completely mortified with myself for it, but it has happened, and Sindhu graciously allows me to put myself back together so we can keep talking. And in those few seconds, it’s easy to see what makes Sindhu so remarkable even without a big screen, stage or script.
She has the uncanny ability to draw you into her world and then out of nowhere, sucker punch you with laughter, horror, shock, more laughter and once in a while, sadness – even when it has nothing to do with you.
It’s the day of the release of her new comedy special Alphabet that’s now streaming on her website.
We catch up on a big day for Sindhu. It’s the day of the release of her new comedy special Alphabet that’s now streaming on her website. It also happens to be Holi (if we were in India, this conversation might have taken place between a water balloon fight), the birthday of her husband and one of her children and there was just news of a blood moon sighting in the UK. The timing of it all feels very auspicious.
“For the family that raised me”
It’s been more than a decade since Sindhu Vee swapped a career in investment banking for one in comedy, and now she’s become a prominent face in the UK comedy circuit. Her debut special, Sandhog was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer, she has appeared on BBC Two’s Live At The Apollo twice, toured around the world and been a part of some seriously exciting films and TV shows. And now, her latest project, Alphabet is out.
Hosted on her own website, the comedy special is inspired by many things, beginning with hair and how important hairstyles are to women. There’s stuff there about her kids and about having stayed married for more than two decades. (“It’s always a surprise to me because I don’t think I’m very easy to stay married to.”) But it’s also about close female friendships and the family that raised her.
Sindhu believes that a lot of the reason why she is funny has to do with her family.
Sindhu believes that a lot of the reason why she is funny has to do with her family. And if you’ve watched her shows, you’ll know that her daily interactions with family and friends feature prominently in her work. “I have always seen myself as an extension of my family and my origin,” she says. “They helped me be a comedian.”
Initially, the way Sindhu had written Alphabet was to get some laughs from her parents and her sister and maybe annoy them a bit (or as Sindhu puts it, “Just to piss the fuck out of them”.) But in the two and a half years that she spent touring the show and working towards filming it, all three of them passed away unexpectedly. Sindhu has never spoken publicly about her sister’s passing or her father’s, until now. “Sometimes if you start talking about something you think you’ll break,” she says. “When they suddenly went one after the other, I had to mark that with something because I understood that anything I write after this – they won’t be here for.” And so the show is packaged visually like a gift to the family she lost and it’s a place where Sindhu’s grief has found a home. “This is for the people who gave me the confidence to start doing this in my early 40s, and actually say that this is my calling.”
I understood that anything I write after this – they won’t be here for.
In its final form, Alphabet is Sindhu’s homage to her sister and her parents. “It looks and sounds the way it does and is being released on my platform because I had to work my way through the sadness of realising that it’s just me – obviously I have my husband and my children, but the family that has moulded and created me is gone.”
In its final form, Alphabet is Sindhu’s homage to her sister and her parents.
But the show itself is not sad. She navigates talking about her Indian roots, her (“very long”) marriage and her complex and sometimes questionable relationship with her best friends in a way that is universally relatable.
Although it’s rooted in her upbringing in a South Asian household, you don’t need to have had Indian parents to understand her humour. Because there are very few people who wouldn’t relate to the very human desire to belong, to love and be loved, and to change your life with a haircut.
First gigs, going viral & creating her niche
When she started out, Sindhu didn’t talk about her new interest in comedy at home, just vaguely telling her family that she was going for a gig. “My youngest would meet other kids and ask them where their mums did gigs – because she thought all mums went on this thing called gig.” She first performed in 2012, when Sindhu hardly knew what stand-up comedy was. She just recognised from the first time she walked on stage that she had to do it again. “I read a lot of books and watched films. I studied it – like any good desi girl,” she laughs, and her first paid gig earned her a grand sum of £5. “That was huge for me. I could not believe I was being paid to do this thing that brought me so much joy. Performing at BBC’s Live At The Apollo was the first time anything of mine went viral – I never realised this could happen to me.”
I could not believe I was being paid to do this thing that brought me so much joy.
Fast forward to 2025, and Sindhu has successfully sold out shows across the world. She’s also firmly cemented herself in the “funny Indian mom” niche, joining the likes of Indian-American comedian Zarna Garg, in this very specific but highly enjoyable comedy genre that has audiences around the world seeing South Asian moms like you’ve never seen them before. And I for one, daughter of a pretty cool Indian mom if I may say so myself, am all for it.
From stage to screen
Sindhu most recently starred in the rom-com Picture This, where she played Simone Ashley‘s mother, Laxmi. Interestingly, this is the second time she’s played Ashley’s on-screen mother, the first being on Netflix’s Sex Education. So in a way, Sindhu has seen Ashley grow up.
She most recently starred in the rom-com Picture This, with Simone Ashley.
“I met Simone while filming. She has always been so generous on set, when I wasn’t sure about something she would always reassure me. I’m not as accomplished as her so sometimes you need that. We had a lot of fun together, she’s a very hard-working person and great company,” Sindhu says.
In Picture This, Sindhu’s character is a woman who is running her own business, while also planning her daughter’s wedding and keeping up the facade of still being married to her ex-husband. But, spoiler alert, by the end of the film, goes on a bit of a journey of self-discovery and ends up dating a much younger man. Laxmi’s storyline is one of the main reasons why Sindhu said yes to the film. “I thought it portrayed something that was so new, but at the same time I thought a lot of South Asian women would say ‘yes please’.” There is a certain eroticism mixed up with knowing yourself, especially as a woman and I think that needs attention, Sindhu explains, a topic that she says features prominently in the next sketch she’s writing. “Age is very much linked to our vision of our place in the world. We just need to keep having fun.”
Sindhu also made an appearance in the Netflix show, Feel Good, created by Mae Martin, where she plays a character called Karen – a pathological liar who goes to narcotics anonymous meetings just to make friends and insists she does drugs when she knows nothing about them.
My entire career is one gigantic pinch-me moment.
She starred as Mrs. Phelps in the 2022 Netflix adaptation of Matilda the Musical. And more recently, she’s been a series regular for Prime Video’s comedy show Pradeeps of Pittsburgh.
“My entire career is one gigantic pinch-me moment,” she says. But whether it’s films, TV or stand-up comedy, Sindhu has realised that there are many different ways to be funny. “You can do it on stage, or in front of a camera with other people’s lines. It’s a different muscle than stand-up but it’s still about being funny, and the one thing I care most about in my life is to make people laugh.”
Watch Sindhu Vee’s comedy special Alphabet on her website here.
