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Itâs 2019, and digital content has exploded in ways we could not have imagined half a decade ago.
I mean, I was still busy devouring Yeh Hai Mohabbatein on television (for lack of better options, I swear) when half of the Indian population had taken off to greener pastures and was going gaga over real, no-nonsense storytelling on YouTube. You guessed it right, that was TVFâs Permanent Roommates (2014) that went viral and helped divert a large chunk of the TV-watching audience towards digital entertainment.
That was five years ago when I was, admittedly, still living under a rock.
Itâs almost 2020 now and I definitely know better than to not make up for lost time.
Binge-watching during my âoff hoursâ is what I do to relieve myself of some of the guilt. It helps that a lot of what I watch these days is comedy.
However, as excited as I am watching free comedy content on YouTube, I found myself bored out of my wits trying to make through some of the comedy challenges recently released on digital mediums. For instance, I found Queens of Comedy (2017), the first Indian all-women stand-up comedy show launched by TLC pretty uninspiring throughout its run-time. So was the case with Comicstaan, backed by Only Much Louder and released on Amazon Prime Video.
Naturally, when news broke out that the first ever crazy ensemble of home-grown celebrities would be called to try their hand at stand-up comedy, I couldnât help but binge watch all the episodes in one sitting and write a review on it.
Conceptualized and hosted by Sapan Verma, co-founder of East India Comedy, One Mic Stand brings on board five notable stand-up comedians from the comedy circuit, namely, Zakir Khan, Angad Singh Ranyal, Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi, and Kunal Kamra. The premise of the show is simple: talented professionals from a variety of fields are mentored by these professional comedians and then thrown into the proverbial ocean to either swim or sink.
Celebrities featured are Bhuvan Bam, Taapsee Pannu, Richa Chadha, Vishal Dadlani, and Shashi Tharoor. Quite an electrifying bunch of speakers, musicians and performers, eh? But was I still as awed by the end of the comedy series?
Read my review of the star cast in action to, rated from the best to the worst to find out whether the show is worth laughing your pants off â or not.
SHASHI THAROOR
Mentored by Kunal Kamra (âthe man who eats, breathes and shits politicsâ, as introduced by Sapan), Shashi Tharoor delivers a witty and sarcastic set, exceeding expectations of his equally savage mentor. With less than a day to prepare for the show, Tharoor is, nevertheless, charm personified on stage.
Tharoor is light, the punches come in soft and silken (just like his voice) and there is an unruffled air about him throughout the act. Since his USP lies in the out-of-the-world vocabulary he often uses in his conversations, thereâs a neat little joke about that as well, right at the start of his act.
Given that he is a politician, there are references in plenitude to viral political terms used in recent years, such as âChowkidarâ and demonetization (ahem, ahem). If you care enough to intently listen to his behind-the-scenes conversations with Sapan and Kunal, you’d likely enjoy the snide remarks about the Prime Ministerâs teleprompter-driven long and (cough) scripted speeches, depending on which side of the fence youâre on.
Tharoor is cool enough to also share the diplomatâs way of calling someone âa pain in the arseâ â a pro tip I think should be included in the Politiciansâ Guide to Being Less Vitriolic in Their Public Utterings. I promise this was a part of the ârole reversalâ section of the show and NO digs were being taken at the ruling party.
But in case youâre beginning to wonder if all politicians must only talk politics, then youâd be thrilled to know that Dr. Tharoor does empathize with the millennial lingo, in that he finishes his rather sleek act with a generous sprinkling of popular phrases such as âlit AFâ, âsnackâ, âYOLOâ, and âApna Time Aayegaâ â all weaved intelligently into the act.
Did I mention how that harmless hair-flick he did in the middle of the act made my heart flip?
Shashi Tharoor is undeniably an excellent orator and a masterful politician, but the stand-up act proves he has what most of his contemporaries donât â the ability to take a joke! Oh, and also that of delivering one with panache!
Tip: Be the change you want to see. Don’t let politics forever wear the tag of a humorless art.
Also, want to learn the art of criticizing a public figure without getting jailed for it? Take a leaf from Kunal Kamraâs book and just watch the man deliver poison without batting an eyelid.
RICHA CHADHA
After Shashi Tharoor, it was Richa Chadhaâs comedy act that blew my mind away, and not entirely on account of her comic timing.
In fact, I dare say, I enjoyed her behind-the-scenes prep talk with Sapan and her mentor Ashish Shakya more than I did her stand-up act.
Richa, whoâs visibly nervous in the beginning, loosens up the moment she gets to know sheâs been a fangirl of a blog named âStupidus Maximusâ maintained by none other than Ashish Shakya. She is floored, and cherubically takes his hand and lightly kisses it.
Ashish looks like heâs on cloud nine, and this moment is worth gushing over, primarily because it is such a relief to watch a Bollywood actress not act like one where itâs not called for. During the prep talk, she makes an appeal for all to come and watch her act, cheekily quipping, âProceeds from all ticket sales are going towards ending nepotism in Bollywood.â
As both Sapan and Shakya dig in for more material that they can include in her act, she is more than happy to share her struggles as a Bollywood aspirant, with the right punches thrown in at the right places. From mimicking the stereotype, rude Casting Director to imitating a sleazy movie producer wanting to catch a glimpse of her navel, to her driver who was enamored with everything UP, she delivered a class act modulating her voice and satirizing a variety of characters.
But drawing laughs in a close circle is wildly different from attempting to make an odd 200 people laugh, and not take you for an idiot to have even thought of such a feat.
Thankfully, Richa does not disappoint.
She begins her act on a sarcastic note, âI started my career with Dibakar Banerjee and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and today I am here with Ashish Shakya and Sapan Verma. Next thing for me would be Bigg Boss.â The audience rings out in laughter, and the tension on her face eases, as she dives in for the next punchlines in her set.
There is an accurate impersonation of her Punjabi aunt who is more worried about her âvyaahâ than her filmography and awards, and quite shrewdly placed, a satire of the hypocrisy and inherent Islamophobia existing in the auntâs mind when she gets to know of Richa dating Ali Fazal, and asks her to focus on her work instead.
Personally, though, my favourite bit about her set was the one where she have us a glimpse of the class divide in Bollywood: for instance, where commercial actors are invited on Koffee with Karan, indie actors like her are invited on the couch of Son of Abish. It took me two minutes to get the sarcasm and I had to replay the joke over and over, but damn, Richa, that was SAVAGE AF!
Effervescent and owning every bit on the stage, she signs off with, âIf you didnât like this set, this is Swara Bhaskar signing off!â
I genuinely loved the set and her comic timing, which, if she chose to work upon, she could really hone and make a career of in future. The fact that she is naturally a spontaneous actor, can mimic characters with exceptional accuracy and is naturally funny and sardonic off-screen only adds to that possibility.
Tip: Donât shut down that blog yet. Who knows, there might be a Bollywood fangirl/fanboy hiding in the shadows waiting to kiss your hand someday đ
BHUVAN BAM
If thereâs one performer the crowd cheered for the hardest on this show, it was Shashi Tharoor. Influencer and star YouTuber Bhuvan Bam came a close second. Bam, who is known for his eccentric and rib-tickling characters like Sameer Fuddi and Titu Mama, among others, on his YouTube channel BB Ki Vines, came in nervous and walked out winning plenty of hearts.
His performance was preceded by mentor Zakir Khan guiding him on which jokes he ought to choose for his act and Bhuvan showing Sapan and Zakir how to pull a near-perfect Titu Mama. I must say, the role reversal sequence at the end of each prep session gave me more meat (as a viewer) to hold on to, because frankly, the celebrity performances were all under ten minutes.
Before Bhuvanâs actual act, Zakir opened the show with one of his trademark âSakht Laundaâ jokes. The cult following of Sakht Launda is spread too far and too wide to get ignored, so yes, it did draw enthusiastic laughs from the crowd.
Bhuvan, who admitted he didnât mind entertaining millions of people as long as he could hide behind a moustache and a wig, but is painfully shy once the mask comes off, began his set by regaling some of his experiences post the YouTube fame. Considering YouTube is his life and thereâs no better way to make an audience laugh than to tell them your first subscribers on YouTube were from your neighbouring country, Pakistan, it really helped the audience connect to Bhuvanâs non-YouTube side.
I even enjoyed his âDhaniaâ and âek baar Bencho bol doâ jokes immensely, and overall the tempo of Bhuvanâs act rose as time went on. In short, Bam offered a slow-burn of a performance, improvising through and through as the jokes came on.
Iâd say it was an earnest performance, and while it felt more like Bhuvanâs anecdotes about his life being funny, the lad does have his own brand of self-deprecating humour that gels well with his shy-boy-explodes-on-YouTube image.
Tip: If you want to be someone who youâre not and make it look it isnât the first time youâre doing it, start from something you already know and rock it like a boss!
TAAPSEE PANNU
Taapseeâs act started off faster than that of the others, primarily because there wasnât any real mentoring that happened. Going by the format of the show, Sapan had ensured that each celebrity theyâd reached out to should be mentored by someone who they had some nexus to. In Taapseeâs case, it was an old âclassmate connectionâ that came to the rescueâŠ.or not.
For the most part, I could only hear Taapsee state out loud what a sore loser she was, right from childhood. The fact that she even dissed mentor Angad Singh Ranyal with a blunt, âTu mentor karega?â and was shocked that he was a known name in the comedy circle speaks volumes about how actors handle their Bollywood fame. I was honestly very put off by her inability to accept the fact that a professional comedian should want to mentor her on comedy â a field she knows nothing about and a subject she was soon going to bring disgrace to.
She started off with the stereotype joke about Delhi, which, truthfully, Iâd have digested better had the prelude to the climax of the joke not been so long-winded. For an actor of her caliber, there was zero storytelling â if felt like she was whining to a close group of friends and not entertaining an audience of 200 plus people. The writing itself was flat, there were no punches that linger in your mind long after itâs over. And the fact that she declared she didnât need cue cards because, hello, she was a critically acclaimed actor and later ended up recalling jokes like school children memorize answers right before the day of the exam, was extremely amateurish.
Overall, neither did I like her attitude towards her debut at stand-up nor did I like the actual performance.
On the other hand, mentor Angad Singh Ranyal opened the show with some terrific writing, cashing in on the Delhi-Mumbai rivalry. He has exceptional storytelling abilities and can induce laughter by saying the most basic things. Heâs totally earned a new fan in me đ
Tip: When youâre trying to make a debut in a field you know nothing about, please just have the grace and sensibility to learn from a pro whoâs been there, done it, and aced it.
VISHAL DADLANI
Brace yourself for my honest review of the weakest act of them all. Vishal Dadlani may have had us all tapping out foot incessantly to his music, but his onstage comic timing is pretty much non-existent.
The prep talk between him, Sapan and mentor Rohan Joshi (of AIB fame) is genuinely fun to watch. Partially because Vishal is really keen to get this âcomedy thingâ right but also spends much of his time muttering what a nervous wreck he is. That bit where he teaches the comedians about conjuring lyrics and music from thin airâŠ.ummmâŠI am appalled, yes, because I now know why so many of these Bollywood songs sound like jazzed up remixes of untainted Hindi songs.
But yes, if thereâs hope for Rohan Joshi and Sapan Verma, thereâs hope for a content writer like me. I mean, I already write, donât I? Bas hawa se inspire hoke music banana hai! đ
Vishal starts off his set by mentioning he has no idea why he signed up for this stand-up thing. Soon enough, he throws in the first joke about his surname which is NOT Shekhar. There are poorly performed jokes weaved around politics, cricket and mental health, and despite him frequently glancing at the cue cards, the delivery fell flat on most of the jokes. There was only one âgoo jokeâ which I chortled at, but thatâs about it. In fact, I wish I could say that it at least sounded like a TED talk, but it wasnât because I was truly bored by the end of it.
Vishal Dadlani seems like someone whoâd be witty and sarcastic in equal measure. Confident even. As long as he’s making music or just talking about life in general. However, stand-up is a different ball game altogether and we cannot really expect debutantes with zero experience to even survive as long as they did in their individual performances.
Tip: Itâs okay to get it wrong and realize your biggest fear of looking like a fool. So long as you tried it and lived to tell the tale.
Summing up
One Mic Stand is a terrific concept that aptly introduces stalwarts from their respective fields and the audience to have a sneak peek of what it is to be a stand-up comedian. Truth be told, despite how each of these performers fared in their individual acts, I laud them for voluntarily putting their hard-earned fame on the line and trying their hand at being passable at something as novel and nerve-wracking as stand-up comedy.
Comedy is comedy till youâre a viewer ripping apart the jokes and deciding in nanoseconds if any of them is worth laughing at.
It is, however, brutal and extremely brave to willingly learn, practice and make money off of comedy â when taken as an art form.
I truly enjoyed the series because unlike other Amazon-backed shows like Comicstaan, there is no competition here about who can make the audience laugh the hardest. There are no judges taking apart every line, every expression, every moment.
In contrast, One Mic Stand is truly what Iâd call the 2019 version of âfinding yourself.â
Say what, Iâm ready for a second round of One Mic Stand to be served. Stand-up comedians, are you listening?
Rating: 4/5