By Shailesh Kapoor
It’s common knowledge that comedy is a popular genre of entertainment content worldwide. India is no exception, of course. Comedy is one of the most preferred genres for both television and theatrical consumption in India. It is also a unifying genre, binding age groups, genders, social strata and regions, on the strength of its powerful benefit, that of de-stressing.
Yet, over the last few years, especially the last two, we have been in probably our worst phase in terms of the quality (and even the quantity) of content being dished out in this genre in India. There have been sporadic success stories in the regional space, but for the purpose of this piece, let’s focus on Hindi language content.
About four years ago, SAB TV had promised a lot in this genre. They had some exciting new shows on-air. But in recent times, the channel has lost some of that momentum, and its flagship show Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah has lost its slot leadership too. Sensing the gap perhaps, Life OK has entered a similar space now, with Hamari Bahu Rajni Kant launching last month and May I Come In Madam coming up next week. The female perspective in Life OK’s comedy is unmistakable. How well this ‘experiment’ works will be in known soon.
The only fiction comedy success story over the last three years has been Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain, the &TV programme that managed to find resonance, in its characters, treatment and setting. But even that show has not managed to grow after a very strong start. Star Plus’ attempt in this genre, Sumit Sambhal Lega, an Indian adaptation of Everybody Loves Raymond, failed to create a stir. Color’s Mrs. Pammi Pyarelal (2013) was a non-starter too. Zee TV’s weekend offering Neeli Chhatri Wale found an audience, but never quite skyrocketed on the popularity charts.
With Taarak Mehta past its prime, the fiction comedy genre faces an apparent opportunity situation, whereby there is a huge audience available, but the right content just doesn’t seem to come by. Instead, non-fiction (though scripted) comedy has been in the spotlight over the last three years, because of the immense popularity of Comedy Nights With Kapil, and the subsequent migration of the star to Sony, announced formally earlier this week.
In films too, the situation is not too different. The entire 2015 has only three mainstream comedy releases in Bollywood: Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon and Singh Is Bliing. This year, two sex comedies released and bombed badly within a week of each other.
There has been much talk in the industry, especially television, about how comedy is a tough genre to write and that we just don’t have the writing talent for it. Production houses and channels cite examples, one after the other, of how they have burnt their fingers with the genre. Those bad experiences have been wrongly rationalised as: The audiences do not like watching comedy in a daily format.
The notion is evidently not true. The need to de-stress goes up with every passing year, and with it, the lucrativeness of the comedy genre keeps rising as well. A lucrative genre doesn’t mean mediocre content will deliver. But in times where new launches in other genres have failed one after the other, there are very high chances that the next big fiction hit on Hindi television will be a comedy show.
When and on which platform that happens, is the million-dollar question indeed.