For more than a decade, Kapil Sharma has entertained audiences with his signature brand of comedy. A key part of that success has been his team of comedians, including Kiku Sharda, Sunil Grover and Krushna Abhishek, whose effortless comic timing often makes the humour appear completely spontaneous. But . Speaking to Prakhar Gupta, Kiku Sharda opened up about how say, The Great Indian Kapil Show comes together, revealing that the writing for each episode begins weeks before the cameras start rolling.
‘A lot of the ideas are completely silly’
He said, “There’s a team that’s constantly working on the writing. So, if we know 15 or 20 days in advance that a particular celebrity is coming for a shoot, the brainstorming begins right away. One team starts discussing: Who’s coming? Which film are they promoting? Which actors will be there? What can we talk to them about? What conversations can we create? We, as performers, aren’t directly involved in that initial process because we’re busy shooting. We’re focused on the current shoot, and once that’s over, we move on to preparing for the next one.”
Explaining how an episode gradually takes shape, Kiku said, “Even then, we do think about the basic characters we can play and the kind of conversations we can have with the guests. We have these sessions in the office, it’s essentially one big jamming session. Imagine a long table, almost twice the size of a regular one. The writers sit there, we sit there, and everyone just talks. A lot of the ideas are completely silly or illogical, but it’s from that chaos that a script eventually emerges.”
Calling those brainstorming sessions his favourite part of the process, he said, “That’s honestly my favourite part of the process. I love those conversations where you’re sitting with a group of writers, everyone is talking nonsense, and there’s one person recording the entire discussion and turning it into a script.”
Kiku said the team does not rehearse in the conventional sense. Instead, they conduct script readings before every shoot.
“Technically, it’s not really a rehearsal. We sit together in the office and simply read the script among ourselves. We read it with the writers, and then Kapil Sharma joins us and we read it with him as well. So yes, there’s a script reading in the office.”
‘We don’t have a full-fledged rehearsal’
He further explained, “We don’t have a full-fledged rehearsal, but once we reach the shoot, we go up on stage and perform the script once. That gives us a sense of how it will feel while performing and whether it can be streamlined further. Since the writers are there with us, we go through the entire script standing on stage, which gives us one last chance to refine it. Other than that, there are no rehearsals.”
Kiku also revealed that while the team prepares extensively, the celebrity guests are unaware of what has been planned, making room for plenty of unpredictability during filming.
He said, “Obviously, the celebrities have no idea any of this is happening beforehand. There are many times when four actors from a film are sitting together and you’re performing in front of them. In those moments, we figure things out on the spot, how we’ll move, what we’ll do, how we’ll respond. We do make plans in advance. The cinematographer and the camera team brief us repeatedly: “Sir, if you stand here, the camera won’t catch you. Stand over there instead.” But ultimately, not everything goes according to plan. What someone is going to say in the moment, nobody really knows.”
‘70% of Kapil Sharma’s show is scripted’
Earlier in the conversation, on the show. He said, “Broadly speaking, there is a script and we do follow it. But only up to a point. Sometimes it’s impossible to stick to it because a celebrity takes the conversation in a completely new direction. Sometimes a different thought strikes you in the moment, and you improvise. I’d say it’s roughly a 70-30 split. Around 70% follows the script, while 30% is completely spontaneous.”
Recalling his experience of performing alongside Salman Khan, Kiku said the superstar is among the toughest guests to predict.
“With Salman Khan especially, you never know what’s going to make him laugh. Sometimes you’ve planned a line thinking, ‘This is going to be hilarious,’ and he barely reacts. Then someone says something completely unexpected in the middle, and that’s what gets him. Once he starts laughing, he just can’t stop. Tears start rolling down his eyes and he’s completely gone.”