goleprateek

Best: right up to the point they had source material Worst: As soon as they ran out of books

One of the best (essential) character on the show, Logic, died after season 4-5. The creators D&D (short for dumb and dumber) are apparently a couple of talent-less hacks, they hardly have anything original on their CV.

Firstly, I'm an avid follower of Stand-up. I'm really hopeful for the future of comedy scene in India. Right now, the scene is flooded with quantity rather than quality & variety. Few have the voice and the rest are noise, and hopefully the voices will come through.

THIS SHOW: Imrov comedy is probably the most difficult form of comedy and to get it right consistently is next to impossible. I've never been to a Improv comedy show, but I've seen my share of "Whose line is it..." and as much as I love these guys (especially Kanan, his special was good) they sucked horribly at the Improv, perhaps it wasn't their day.

I was really looking forward to see this show when it dropped on prime videos, specifically to see Kaneez perform what she has been claiming is her forte on various podcast/appearances. Sadly, her's was a lackluster/trying-too-hard performance.

The show wasn't a lot for you facial muscles, you'd chuckle a couple of times at most.

I'm still hopeful, disappointed but hopeful.

The stand-up comedy scene in India has been booming for a while now. While the fans of the developing art-form have enormous expectation from the established and emerging artists, the scene never exploded like we all expected it to.

When a seasoned comedian like Zakir Khan fills auditoriums (stadiums even) across the country on his tour, only to be replaced in one of the only comedy reality show in this country by someone as untalented as Sajid Khan, it raises the question on the legitimacy and existence of Indian stand-up comdey.

Why is stand-up comedy is still struggling to find its audience? Why only Mumbai and Bangalore are the only cities with active comedy clubs?

You can argue that stand-up comedy is an acquired taste and its future is digital, but if you take a look at the bunch Amazon (couple of Netflix) comedy specials, how many of them you'd consider to be good enough, let alone ground breaking?

The stand-up comedians (barring a few) and the audience, both are responsible:

1. Audience: Most of the audience who flock to stand-up shows are still getting the hang of it. They can be easily manipulated by doing cheap tricks like crowd work (*cough* Kenny *cough*) or they might not laugh at some of the most ingenius punchlines (happended in a lot of the shows I've been to). But what is not expected from audience is to follow a trend. Trend is the polar opposite of comedy, which is about breaking the false expectations. Audience will only evolve when they leave their prejudices and expectations behind. Only then they'll hear what a comedian is truly saying.

2. Comedian: Someone in Daniel Fernandes's podcast said that a lot of people compare him to Zakir, or ask him to do Zakir. Those people obviosly aren't getting what stand-up is, but I think there's more. Perhaps, subconsiously, they identify Zakir's voice among the rest. If you look at Indian stand-up comedians, how many of them have a voice which is original? There's a race of RJs, VJs or anyone who could speak on stage that came rushing to cash-in when the comedy scene started. Most of the comedians (like Kautuk) belong to this race. They're here to do bollywood-karan of stand-up. The naive audience, who don't have many options, laugh at below par comedy thinking this is what comedy is. Veteran comedians should not only teach audience by keeping the quality up, they should point out comedians doing age-old cheap comedy in the name of Stand-up.