The Great Indian Kapil Show, Saved By The Belle, Sunil Grover Steals The Show

Admittedly Episode 3 of Netflix’s high-profile was an improvement on Episode 1 wherein the Kapoor family were paid a small fortune to pretend to enjoy the jokes on the show.

In its third episode The Great(?) Indian Kapil Show did what it does best: it insulted people, irrespective of their caste, creed, culture or nationality.

In that sense the show is truly democratic.

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I am not sure if the lead pair of Chamkila and the director Imtiaz Ali were paid to pretend to appreciate Kapil’s humour since Chamkila is Netflix’s film. Who charges money for ghar ka khana?

What I noticed is that Diljit Dosanjh was not much amused by Abhishek Krushna’s Trump card. His Donald Trump impersonation was grotesque; and that was fine. When you are impersonating someone so irredeemable you can’t soften the blow.

Kiku Sharda’s Korean politician act was not the least amusing. Ridiculing accents and cultures is the lowest form of humour. Could we have less jokes about body-shaming and culture-lampooning?

The show perked up midway when Sunil Grover arrived. His ‘Dafli’ drag act is anything but a drag. Grover lifts the show each time he arrives. In the third episode too there was a sobriety tucked underneath that shimmering Chamkila saree. In no time at all, Grover had the entire congregation on stage singing and dancing with him.

For me, this episode was decisive: it proved Kapil alone cannot carry the show. The show needs Sunil Grover’s decorous humour to pull it across the finishing line.

All said and done there was still not enough chutzpah on display in episode 3 to call it an all-round success. The quality that divides Kapil from the rest of the humourists in our country is funk. Let’s have more of the fearless sassy irreverent Kapil and less of the star-struck promotional machine.