Seven of India’s finest comedians have come together to organise an Amazon Prime original comedy hunt reality show- Comicstaan. With all the marketing and publicity that they’ve engaged in, Naam toh suna hee hoga?
These seven hilarious comedians include – Kenny Sebastian, Tanmay Bhatt, Kanan Gill, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Sapan Verma, Naveen Richard and Kaneez Surka.
Certainly, Comicstaan has brought about a great whirlwind of laughter and way for comedy into our lives. Thanks for that, peeps.
MAKING COMEDY MORE STRUCTURED
Here’s a fun fact I learnt from Comicstaan- even comedy is of 7 different genres! Starting from anecdotal, topical, observational, improvising etc, Comicstaan’s teaching it all to the top 10 comedians of India. However, errr… are they really the top 10 comedians of India?
HOW THE TOP 10 WERE SELECTED
The judges on board divided themselves into groups of 2s and 3s, each group covering a specific city. I must say, this method was faulty both judgement wise as well as in terms of area coverage.
Was it fair on the comedians, of different regions, to be judged by different judges- who, to top it all- specialise in specific genres?
Even though the final TOP 10 were judged by the whole bunch of 7 judges, the people who were initially selected for the next (top 10) round were only judged by TWO JUDGES!
Only Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi had auditions held.
Abish Matthew does say in the first episode that they received entries from all over the country and abroad, and that they ‘flew them down’ to Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.
This seems like Comicstaan sponsored for their arrival at these cities. If that’s the case for all the worthy applicants, hats off team Comicstaan! If they were asked to come by their own, don’t you think that’s a very low-coverage hunt for the TOP 10?
Though few worthy ones must’ve definitely been left out- there’s no saying that the ones who are selected aren’t great to watch on set.
Also Read: Zakir Khan’s Haq Se Single Is More Than Just Comedy: ED Review
MENTORING ABSOLUTE STRANGERS TO BECOME THEIR OWN COMPETITION
This is quite unique- every week one of the seven judges mentor you in one of the seven genres of comedy in which he/she specialises in. The average of the scores that all the mentees have received becomes the score of the mentor.
This will obviously push them towards mentoring the participants to the best of their abilities. It is tough – teaching absolute strangers how to become their own competition, as Tanmay Bhatt also remarked.
JUST LAUGH, WILL YOU?
A great aspect that you come by in this series is that the judges do not “ask for respect”. They’re absolutely cool with the participants cracking up some jokes on them.
Some participants also deal with dark humour which is actually teaching the youth not to take offence in everything that they come across.
All in all, I am definitely waiting for the next episode of Comicstaan (I have already chosen my favourite one). It’s refreshing to binge watch 10 comedians on set back to back. Letting go of a few cringe-worthy moments here and there, Comicstaan is definitely worth a watch.
Sources: The Quint, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express
Image: Google Images
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