Rinkoo Barpaga

Artist Statement

In 2008 the credit crunch hit and Rinkoo found himself unemployed. This unexpected opportunity would transpire to be the start of Rinkoo’s work on the stage. He received some funding from Deaf Explorer to develop a stand-up comedy piece, to challenge stereotypes that Deaf people can’t be mainstream comedians. Unfortunately, this led to no follow on opportunities in the UK, so Rinkoo took his piece to the Gotham Comedy Club in New York. Rinkoo leaped to success in stand up comedy in the US and after several booked out performances, Rinkoo returned home to work the Soho comedy circuit and other comedy venues.

This foundation work in the comedy world led to Rinkoo achieving his own one man show Am I Funny?, funded by the Art Council. This allowed for Rinkoo to become a Foundry at the Birmingham Rep Theatre and afforded the opportunity to find and develop his unique performance offerings.

In 2018, Rinkoo had a secondary one man show Made In (India) Britain, combining his unique visual story telling with his comedian experience, directed by Daniel Bailey.

Simultaneously, Rinkoo had his first experience of directing his own show Bubble and Butch, funded by Unlimited.

Currently, Rinkoo is pleased to be working on the duo clown project Chocolat, incorporating visual dramatics with a hard hitting message. He continues to develop his work in comedy at high profile comedy clubs and is consistently creating exciting future projects in physical performance, visual story telling, Meisner technique and improv.

Rinkoo is also in development of creating his own art form, incorporating comedy, solo performing and inspirational speaking.