Shakeel Siddiqui Shares His Views On Pakistani Comedy

By Andrea Cooper

20 March 2023

Stand-up comedian Shakeel Siddiqui, a prominent figure in the entertainment industry, recently made an appearance on the Hafiz Ahmed Podcast where he shared his thoughts on the current state of Pakistani comedy shows. During the webisode, Siddiqui expressed his opinion that Pakistan is presently unable to make a show like The Kapil Sharma Show, a popular comedy show in India.
Shakeel Siddiqui.jpg

The Last Of Comedians

Siddiqui, who gained fame in Bollywood after appearing as a contestant in Comedy Circus, has worked alongside famous personalities like Urvashi Dholakia, Salman Khan, and Johnny Lever.

The podcast host questioned Siddiqui on his views about stand-up comedy shows in Pakistan, to which he replied, "To make a show like Kapil Sharma, you would have to find a Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, or Katrina Kaif here. Our artists come for interviews and strictly say, 'No, we won't perform.' That's the difference; Indian actors always perform on the shows they are invited to and are even given scripts to follow and they do so."
Siddiqui also mentioned that to create a show like Kapil Sharma, Pakistan would need a budget and a significant financial investment. "Even though I always say that when it comes to humor, Pakistan is always ahead of India. Even our audiences are hilarious and are capable of making jokes about anything. The rise of inflation hasn't done much for us, except evoke a humorous temperament in the public. In India, comedy is creatively planned out instead, they create scripts. If we take the Kapil Sharma show as an example, they have 12-14 writers designated to work on specific elements of the show.

The Face Of Comedy

In comparison, Pakistanis just work like laborers. Trust me, something like that can't be done here," he added. Before concluding, Siddiqui held that Pakistan already has too many issues to deal with. "Pakistan is already suffering from many issues, it's enough for the people to just deal with them for now," he noted. Siddiqui's opinion has sparked a conversation about the current state of comedy shows in Pakistan and the industry's potential for growth.

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