Kapil Sharma walked the thick red line between laughter and celebrity interview in the seventh episode of The Great Indian Kapil Show, starring the ensemble cast of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Netflix series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Shaikh and Sharmin Segal joined Team Kapil for an evening of charm and chuckles.
Sporting the hat of a funky paanipuriwala, Kapil dished out laughs along with appetising snacks. The episode began with a typical skit featuring Kapil, Sunil Grover and Krushna Abhishek, all salivating over paanipuri. Enter, the Heeramandi gang. As the actresses made a beeline for the paanipuri cart, Kapil set the tone by refusing to serve Sonakshi for calling him ‘bhaiya’.
As Kapil bantered with the Heeramandi girl gang, his own gang of boys/girls kept the humour train chugging along. After some hit-and-miss jokes, the show finally struck comedy gold with a sketch featuring Krushna as the mischievous Chunni Babu and Kiku Sharda as the sassy Chandramukhi — from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas, of course. Chandramukhi giving it back to Chunni Babu, cheered on by Sonakshi and Co., was quite the highlight. While Krushna and Kiku brought on the laughs and the applause, Sunil Grover’s stint as Engineer Chumbak fizzled out, for once.
The show however belonged to the Heeramandi heroines who shone bright – all except Sharmin Segal, Bhansali’s niece, who hardly had anything to contribute. While Sonakshi led the way, Richa Chadha’s quip about the role played by (husband) Ali Fazal in their ‘family planning’, and her candour in admitting to 99 retakes for a single song sequence were two other standout moments. Overall, the comfortable camaraderie among the Heeramandi 6 made for easy viewing, capped by them moving gracefully to ‘Sakal Ban’.
Now, the spotlight shifts firmly to probably the most anticipated episode of The Great Indian Kapil Show – starring global singing sensation Ed Sheeran! What happens when Kapil and his merry men/women meet the Hindi-speaking (!) Grammy winner? We’ll find out this Saturday evening on Netflix.
