Thank god Kapil Sharma is back. Comedy Nights Live is just terrible
Yesterday, I was actually pleased to read that Kapil Sharma's new show - The Kapil Sharma Show - would be starting from April on Sony. The reason why I was pleased was because I had suffered through three episodes, even if on fast forward, of Comedy Nights Live, which is the new avatar of Comedy Nights With Kapil ever since Colors and Kapil Sharma broke up.
Now I've never been a fan of Comedy Nights With Kapil. It is the saas-bahu version of comedy shows. As puerile and regressive as Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi was and as successful as the latter as well. For years, Comedy Nights With Kapil got the highest TRPs amongst all of Colors shows - including Bigg Boss at its peak. So it really doesn't matter whether I think it was a deadly combination of regressive and offensive.
In the show, Kapil Sharma played Bittu Sharma, and various actors/ comedians played his family and neighbours and he interviewed actors every week on the show. The only two characters who were actually amusing or endearing were Palak and Gutthi, who were two Punjabi star-struck girls who were his neighbours and had a few choice lines and mannerisms. The characters were played by Sunil Grover and Kiku Sharda in drag. The rest of the show was marked by another male actor dressed as his lecherous alcoholic Dadi, a male "naukar", and two female actors who played his aunt and wife - both with decidedly unfunny lines.
This was all presided over by former cricketer and MP, Navjot Singh Sidhu who would sit on a chair facing the stage and laugh at any rubbish spoken and now and then mouth some self-written shayari. The success of Comedy Nights With Kapil was proven by the fact that any and every actor worth his salt, including the Conscience Of The Nation himself - Aamir Khan, appeared on the show to be literally molested by the male actors dressed as women, and to laugh uproariously at all the "jokes" - in the hope that the audiences would go watch their film.
Then like all great relationships, there was a bitter breakup - where Kapil Sharma walked out of the Colors house with the family members he wanted. One stayed back - the decidedly unfunny aunt - and joined the new avatar of the show.
Comedy Nights Live is hosted by Krushna Abhishek who happens to be Govinda's nephew and seems to be channeling Govinda's '90s gentility. Watching it reminded me of when we in Bengal voted Trinamool Congress into power. We felt nothing would make us miss the Left. Till we encountered Bengal under Mamata Banerjee. Now we look back fondly at those decades under the Left and realise that the known devil was better than the unknown.
Much in the same vein, I never thought I'd miss Kapil Sharma's comedy till I saw what the alternative was. Obviously the producers of Comedy Nights Live thought that they shouldn't fix something that wasn't broken. So Krushna plays the new owner of Bittu Sharma's house, his neighbour is a very loud crass woman with a walking disability - played by a man in drag, of course. To be different, comedienne Bharti Singh is dressed as a little boy who is Bittu Sharma's son.
The bua who was left behind in the custody battle is here as well. As are random neighbours and family members. Navjot Singh Sidhu has been replaced by Mika Singh. Because if a cricketer and ex-Parliamentarian can do so, why not a singer.
The first episode that I saw with Madhuri Dixit as a guest, spent the better part of the episode taking digs at Kapil Sharma. It's like when you breakup with someone and they pretend they don't care, but they can't seem to stop talking about you to other people and whining about how you just weren't right for them. There was nothing remotely funny in the episode or the ones after. None of the characters are endearing or even laughable. But the biggest death knell for Comedy Nights Live is that the cornerstone of Comedy Nights With Kapil, that the biggest stars would appear on the show before releasing their films to be subjected to light and sometimes heavy molestation, is missing. It seems that the stars have not taken a shine to the new avatar.
Also, when Bobby Deol is the guest star on your show, you know you're doomed. The stars that have appeared on Comedy Nights Live are Madhuri Dixit, Sunny and Bobby Deol, the cast of Fitoor and by default Salman Khan for exactly 5 minutes when he came to say hello to Katrina Kaif, Sonam Kapoor who had to share the episode with Mandana Karimi from Kya Kool Hai Hum 3, and the lead characters of Asoka, Naagin and something called Krishnadaasi with a young girl dressed as a widow - the latter had to milk a cardboard life-sized cow on stage.
This is why you don't try to fix something that isn't broken. I doubt The Kapil Sharma Show will break any new ground or stop catering to the lowest common denominator, but anything is better than Comedy Nights Live. Also, the saving grace of the new show from what I gathered from the promo with the entire old cast including Sidhu, is that no one is cross-dressing in the show. But let's not hold our breath.
You can watch Comedy Nights Live on Sundays on Colors at 10pm.