Sunil Grover's show 'Mad in India' not mad enough!

The inaugural episode of the much-anticipated Sunil Grover/Manish Paul show Mad In India did not do justice to the title. It lacked the madness and zing expected from the comedy show.

Sunil as the corrupt neta did not say anything that we haven’t heard before. The jokes were trite and the lines lacked the punch. You wanted that segment to get over and see him in his Chutki avatar. Siddharth Jadhav did liven up the proceedings with his zany humour, especially when he brought Chutki in his cycle rickshaw. For a minute we thought the show will get its plot, but even Chutki meandered after some witty remarks and digs on her own exit from ‘there’ (Comedy Nights With Kapil)! The songs and poems that one looked forward to from Sunil’s Gutthi, turned out to be a drag here. Manish as the host seemed to be trying hard to raise laughter but failed badly.

More than Sunil and Manish, the show belonged to Baba Ramdev. It felt weird to watch him shaking his abdomen and showing his abs. Is anyone really interested in knowing his academic record or how good a singer he is! We know that at some ‘live’ show, Baba was impressed by Sunil but is that any reason to dumb down on us? As Manish said we were seeing a different side of Ramdev but really we were better off without that!

It’s just the first episode, so we give it the benefit of doubt, but unless Sunil and Co pull punches, we would prefer spending our comedy nights elsewhere!

Mad In India
Star Plus Sunday 9 pm.