India’s Got Latent 2: ‘Donald Trump’ Steals The Show

Not only is Samay Raina going the Kapil Sharma route by bringing celebrities as special guests on his show — which also means he has to be careful that his jokes don’t land them in trouble as well — but he also has to promote sponsors blatantly, observes Sreeju Sudhakaran.

IMAGE: Sharvari, Alia Bhatt and Samay Raina in India’s Got Latent Season 2.

Beginning this review with an honest confession: I haven’t seen any of Samay Raina’s comedy routines nor have I watched the previous, very controversial, season of India’s Got Latent.

As Sharvari joked in the first episode of the new season, the only bits and pieces of the show, and even Raina’s comedy, that I had watched came through news channels and social media after then fellow panellist Ranveer Allahbadia‘s silly joke turned IGT into a silly and needless, TRP-chasing, over-reactionary controversy.

Sab Paise Ka Khel Hai, Babu Bhaiyya!

Just going by those clips, I can say I probably wouldn’t have been a fan of the guy anyway because I am not a fan of humour that requires punching down.

Anyway, that’s just my humble opinion because Samay Raina is certainly a tour de force in his field. He is immensely popular with the younger generation, and that only makes me feel quite old, (un)happily gloating over the vestiges of having what I believe is a more mature taste in comedy (which is, rewatching Dulhe Raja).

And for Raina, the adage that any controversy is good controversy certainly worked in his favour, even if he had to spend months being hounded by the police and the media over a tasteless joke.

The second season of India’s Got Latent has been acquired by Netflix while also dropping simultaneously on YouTube. That means mo’ money and mo’ algorithm-recommending eyeballs.

But with mo’ money comes mo’ money-attracting endorsements. So not only is Raina going the Kapil Sharma route by bringing celebrities as special guests on his show — which also means he has to be careful that his jokes don’t land them in trouble as well — but he also has to promote sponsors blatantly.

So the first episode has Alia Bhatt and Sharvari as the special guests on a panel that also includes Raina, Aashish Solanki and Balraj Ghai. Of course, the ladies are there to promote their movie Alpha even though Alia vehemently denies it.

That lie fools no one, and Raina is quick to point out why she is wearing an Alpha cap, which Alia refuses to take off (she later even presents an Alpha T-shirt to a contestant).

While that joke certainly gets the laughs, it also reeks of double standards when Raina himself awkwardly promotes three brands during the episode: An Indian-made mobile phone (which even the contestants seem reluctant to get excited about), a protein bar and a beverage.

Alia Vs Sharvari At The Judges’ Table

If only Alia had simply accepted why they were there, or at least pointed out the hypocrisy. Kudos to her for taking jokes at her own expense, but I also expected her to fire back with a few bangers of her own, especially when she was constantly being ribbed by everyone else, with Sharvari even having to explain the ‘A-flat’ joke to her.

Of course, with the kind of humour being passed around in the name of ‘good-natured’ ribbing, Alia’s previous headline-making gaffe about mistaking the then President of India also found its way into the show. Nothing’s funnier than making jokes about how dumb girls are, right?

Sadly, Alia doesn’t help her own case either, often missing her cues, even prompting the final contestant (more on him later) to joke that she is in desperate need of a script and a director. She is a wonderful actress, but perhaps impressing on comedy shows isn’t her strongest suit.

The only time Alia really seized the moment was when an audience member shouted ‘money’ in response to a question about what women love in men. Her annoyed ‘kaun bola ye’ was perhaps the most relatable reaction of the episode.

Sharvari, on the other hand, is far more sprightly and spontaneous, even bringing Raina down a peg or two with some sharp burns. Her stardom keeps getting questioned, a joke I didn’t quite understand, and so does the claim that Munjya was a flop, which has no basis whatsoever.

I am not a fan of the supernatural comedy, but Munjya worked at the box office and remains the only genuine hit in the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe apart from the Stree films. Also, I don’t know when this episode was shot, but her new film Main Vaapas Aaunga is also doing well in theatres.

The Comedy Doesn’t Always Land

The exchanges between the panellists range from fairly amusing to downright rude, with many of the jokes landing at the expense of the two actresses. You can call me a dinosaur for not appreciating the misogyny packaged as dark humour. That’s totally my fault for not evolving with the times.

That said, this was my first time watching Raina in full flow beyond the viral social media clips, and he undoubtedly has a strong comic instinct. He knows when to throw in the perfect burn.

Unsurprisingly, he also cracked a few jokes about the legal storm following the first season and sportingly laughed when others poked fun at him, but he never pushed those jokes too far.

Obviously.

Yet, the show still feels like a SoBo version of The Kapil Sharma Show because the humour is kinda boorish. In the bonus feature at the tail-end of the episode, there is even a drag act to complete the comparison.

Where the episode truly scores is with its contestants, all of whom are fairly talented. For those, like me, who are new to the show, India’s Got Latent has contestants perform a comedy routine for one-and-a-half minutes. The judges score them, the contestants also score themselves, and the winner is the one whose self-score matches the judges’ score.

‘Donald Trump’ The Comedian!

The first contestant, Suhasini, blessed with a lovely voice and plenty of confidence, performs a ditty about the struggles of living in Mumbai, despite being more of a Delhi girl. She also ends up being the lowest-scoring contestant of the episode, though her singing dazzled Alia enough to get a hug from her.

The second contestant, Marathi theatre actor Sukrut Deo, walks onto the stage, acting like a drunk. While he runs out of time before delivering the punchline of his rant, which also possibly reeked of misogyny, his commitment to playing the drunk before seamlessly slipping out of character for a brief moment impresses everyone.

There was, however, an oddly tone-deaf moment when Raina compared Sharvari to this struggling actor from Ambernath, overlooking the fact that her supposed ‘outsider’ tag sits uneasily with her privileged background. Just Google who her maternal grandfather is.

The third contestant, Gajendra Puri, joked about how buffaloes making better pets than dogs and wrapped up his act with an amusing ‘moo point’. He is equally entertaining during his interactions with the judges, particularly his riff on the television show Balika Vadhu. In fact, the contestants’ interactions with the judges were actually the most engaging bit across the episode.

However, the scene-stealer of the episode, and eventually the winner, is Ashish Agarwal.

His impersonation of Donald Trump is hands down hilarious, and there is every chance he has landed himself a new side hustle as the go-to ‘Trump’ whenever Indian news channels need the ‘US President’ to praise, err… a certain someone.

The jokes touch upon Trump’s creepiness, the Iran war, Epstein Island, the H-1B visa process and even Ranveer Allahbadia. Smartly, though, both ‘Trump’ and the panellists know exactly where to draw the line while joking about his close ‘fraand’.

Let Shekhar Suman deal with that political style of humour. We don’t need another round of FIRs, do we, Mr Raina?

India’s Got Latent Season 2 Episode 1 Review Rediff Rating: