Comicstaan is back, and the new comic talent is here to slay

When Amazon aired the first season of Comicstaan in 2018, it was a different world. And I don’t mean just the pre-pandemic world where the hug was not virtual and when virtual reality didn’t mean video-conferencing. In many other ways, the world has changed for all of us, none more so than the poor standup comedians who face the constant danger of offending someone or the other with their gags and jokes.

Go giggle at their gigs, but then don’t forget to get offended. As one contestant in the third, seriously sparkling season of Comicstaan addresses the elephant in the room he even brings up the ‘F’ word. I mean, the FIRs that comic standups are constantly threatened with.

Most of the time, Season 3 of Comicstaan talks the talk and walks the woke without whittling away at the wit. Of course, the contestants are walking on glass. This makes their act even more tempting and teasing. It’s like watching a striptease where you know all the clothes won’t come off. But the promise of an alluring closure is never denied.

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This brings me to the contestants. Should I name them? Or should their incredible talent for walking on glass without crunching on religion and politics, be kept a secret until they explode on screen? On second thoughts, let’s give a big hand to this season’s super-impressive line-up of contestants: Gurleen Pannu, Aashish Solanki, Adesh Nichit, Shamik Chakrabarti, Shreya Priyam, Pavitra Shetty, Natiq Hasan and Aman Jotwani.

What do I say about these eight bright radiant torchbearers of humour in unique form? These humorists are here to slay. They are all so vivacious and uninhibited, most of the time I could see the seasoned judges and mentors Zakir Khan, Sumukhi Suresh, Kenny Sebastian and Neeti Palta, Anu Menon, Aadar Malik, Rohan Joshi and Rahul Subramanian looking very worried about their own future.

Yes, the new generation of standups are here. Let’s give the new standups a standing ovation. The talents I saw in the new season of Comicstaan were fearless and unstoppable. Only, one of the episodes had the contestants roasting the mentors and judges. The insults got somewhat squirmy. I could see some of the judges were not having fun being called unflattering, at times downright dirty names.

Here’s where I felt the contestants need to draw a line between humour and insult. Most of the contestants knew where to draw the line. One contestant did a whole very amusing gig on condoms. Another one focussed on crypto currency which was okay-okay. And a third… well, he had the gumption to stand in front of the judges and confess, “Main bhool gaya”(I’ve forgotten my act).

Just goes to show it is cool to be vulnerable as long as it doesn’t become a habit. A word about the co-hosts. While Abish Mathew has been doing it for three seasons, Kusha Kapila is a new recruit. She is fairly good at her job, taking the jibes about her husband on her chin. As F.I.R as the humour goes, no one is in this for any other reason but to have fun.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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