Chalo Koi Baat Nahi review: Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak channel individual charms but flounder under lightweight material

Comedy, you could argue, has comes leaps and bounds in India. What was previously considered a possession of the poet or the artist is now a full-time profession many youngsters in the country are turning to. The pandemic, its implications for gig culture, may have temporarily blocked the way but in the long run, comedians seem destined to rival Bollywood celebrities for popularity. To a younger section of the audience, they may already be the bigger brands. The only problem to that prospective destination where Indian comedy is headed is the fact that the same old faces continue to reappear on our screens. Created by well-known comedians Gursimran Khamba and Amit Tandon, SonyLIV’s Chalo Koi Baat Nahi is a sketch comedy show that desperately aims to replicate the novelty value of Saturday Night Live but may have been better off recreating the spontaneity of _Whose Line is it Anywa_y. Chalo Koi Baat Nahi, is a sketch comedy show, hosted for some reason by the actors Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak. It kind of puts paint to the bland outline of the point that even for richer and more experimental world of Indian comedy, all roads eventually lead to Bollywood. Pathak and Shorey aren’t exactly stars but are trusted and loved actors who have done comedic roles in the past. Hosting a live audience, as they apparently do here, however, is another story. Pathak is typically restrained and pleasant while Shorey is the more animated of the two. Together they try their best to channel individual charms but eventually flounder under lightweight material. It’s not even a case of actors faring poorly at the gig, as much as it is the modest jokes, all of them bloated by nostalgia for the present. Most ideas in the series echo the crowdsourcing energy of listicles, with little ingenuity or nuance thrown into the mix. The first episode is titled ‘Trains’. Pathak and Shorey give us anecdotal reasons as to why the rail journey remains India’s most comprehensive socio-cultural panorama. It’s a clichéd premise, as if a comedy bit pulled from one of the creators’ (both comedians) acts. It might have worked as a piece, but with several small narratives woven in, it feels sobering and tiring. In one sketch a bomber is pestered to the brink of helplessness by an intrusive fellow journeyman and his family. In another, a railway announcer attempts to inject irony and comedy into the platform announcement. In another two men bond over their middle-age anxieties.

These slice-of-life anchors are good enough as hooks but the actual construction and execution of the concerning sketch is underwhelming.

Again, maybe much more could have been achieved, had the artists been asked to improvise their characters rather than recite the tedious lines they’ve been given. The second episode, ‘Hospital’ improves on the previous in terms of premise. The plight of doctors and India’s strained relationship with the notion of healthcare itself is a fascinating subject to explore. A mock DVD-era video – shot retro style – for doctors wanting to learn self-defence sounds like a good idea, but though the aesthetic delivers, the pacing and direction of the actual piece doesn’t. The problem with doing pre-directed sketches attached to a presumably live show is the contrasting energy of the two. As soon as Pathak and Shorey begin to grab your attention with their observational punchlines, you are pulled towards a sketch with a completely different tone. Switching between the two feels tedious as one is raw and robust compared to the other. It doesn’t help that the actors’ pieces are edited with them seemingly having no context of what will eventually be shown. It’s almost as if two different ideas have been merged together for the sake of a workable format. Nobody gave thought to the transitions, the environment, and the narrative jigsaw that leaves you feeling alienated by ideas, that in isolation, may have even carried potential. Like much of AIB’s(All India Bakhchod) projects, this is also a format that has been borrowed from popular predecessors on the international stage. Clearly, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all shoe in comedy and it’s a lesson you’d think people associated with India’s first real comedy troupe would have learned by now. And yet, the pattern repeats itself to underwhelming results. While watching I couldn’t help but think if Shorey and Pathak would have been better off doing the sketches, with the restrained and revisionist approach of cinema working to their well-established strengths. Here they are stuck somewhere in the middle, neither comedic nor acting, but half-heartedly dragging a bits-and-pieces concept across the line with the sheer weight of their charm and reputation. Like Prime Video’s farcical LOL Hassse to Phasse this SonyLIV series has assembled the talent, even has some sights of good ideas, but no semblance of tone or pace. It’s watchable only for the many situations imagined, but rarely for how they are executed.