Standup Girl is your go-to drama for a dose of fun, laughter and messages wrapped in humour that’s liberating enough not to require too much grey matter to “get it”, yet comic enough to giggle the episode away! Yeah, that’s Standup Girl in a nutshell for you!
Green Entertainment is belting out stories that challenge the status quo. It’s not just a new channel on the block, but a new channel with a view to shifting the narrative. Standup Girl takes on this challenge by essaying a young girl who’s not into teaching, or “house-wife-ing”, nothing wrong with both professions, just that they seem to be done to death and we wonder if Pakistani girls follow any other career path? Well, it seems they do, or aspire to, at least, as Zara Noor Abbas portrays Zara, the young, defiant, outspoken stand up comedy act who needs to unleash her inner wit and social commentary onto an unsuspecting world.
While we applaud the original storyline, yet the script or rather, dialogues disappoint in the subsequent comedy act.
Story Highs & Lows
But fret not as the drama seems to be looking up beyond the first few episodes. A blend of family dynamics and a hugely relatable inner city feel are the pull factor for this tale that’s warming up on slow burn, just like Zara’s migration from Islamabad to her mother’s ancestral home in another city.
But hold on, just as we begin to admire the novelty of it all, we witness a young Zara taking centre stage at a college function, “out-witting” the principal in a comedy act that, well, could have been scripted with more comedy and less defiance?
Yet, we swing from one extreme to another as all is not lost here – the story, once again, catapults into a chain of events that throw our heroine into meeting up with an estranged family steeped in theatrical dynamics – one she has never witnessed before!
Casting & Performances
Zara Noor Abbas is, as usual adding charm and wit in a role that is both casual and young feel – and she’s acing both with a swag. Add to that, Sohail Ahmad’s nana moods and patriarchal avatar, as he tends to his long lost grand daughter, and the extended family nucleus that is as desi as it gets and one wonders, if life extends beyond freshly cooked sabzi, bhunna hua gosht, and gulab jamun. Yeah, the family has a penchant for home cooking and not just that, Raju aka Saqib Sumeer, Hina, Saleem, Mirza Sahib, our poetic neighbour who breaks into random verse all add an intangible yet relatable atmosphere to the story.
Standup Girl is perhaps, an unpretentious take on inner city living, and the people at Green Entertainment are rolling out quite a few of these – Jeevan Nagar being one currently on air. The story is targeted to gain traction from those who see themselves in the lives of the not so rich and not so famous, yet, who live a very real and perhaps, old world existence in cities that are inhabited by real people.
Messaging
Amidst it all is a cafe, whose owners are just barely staying afloat by encouraging young talent, a young girl (Zara’s friend) Alina, who is battling newly-wed in-law issues, as she feels her freedom curtailed in many ways, Kabeer aka Danyal Zafar, a young rapper/music composer who’s trying to find his way, often stuck in a creativity roadblock, an independent-minded young girl, Zara, who has to deal with a long lost family, (more like a tabbar), suffocating, overly concerned about her wellbeing, yet overly ignorant of her feelings of being caged inside a family home.
What’s different is how the characters measure up as past and dated shadows of a theatrical life that Zara perhaps, wants to achieve now. Yet, she is so mired in her own challenges at present that she’s not able to see the connection.
Throw in Danyal Zafar as the young musician who struggles with creativity and we have a story!
Standup Girl seems a promising venture and we hope the script can pick itself up to not only give us scattered doses of fun and laughter, but a riveting comedy act that genuinely makes us laugh, a musical composition that is a sure hit and characters that come together to warm hearts as family bonds and old world charm win over the young at heart!
If the first few episodes of Standup Girl seemed to fall short of expectations, which they did, to some extent, the recent few, especially episode 4 just pulled it up several notches. Hence, our advice, revisit this one as it’s turning on the laughter quotient and handing out quiet messaging along the way.
Questions To Ask
While the story is holding up as an original, perhaps the frames, locations and inner city feel are one we have visited recently. The casting too, has been one we have seen often enough in recent projects. Should the channel stagger dramas that hint at a similar feel? Do we need to switch things around in the casting department? These are questions the makers can ask themselves as they monitor the viewability of such projects. Standup Girl is a courageous effort at doing things differently in a cut-throat drama world and its success should not be compromised due to external factors that are, after all, very much under control if planned strategically!
Standup Girl is presented by Q&K PRODUCTIONS in collaboration with MULTIVERSE ENTERTAINMENT. The drama is directed by the talented Kashif Nisar. The script penned by the brilliant Awais Ahmad and Adeel Afzal, sets the stage for a stellar cast to shine. Featuring Sohail Ahmad, Zara Noor Abbas, Daniyal Zafar, Saba Faisal, Adnan Shah Tipu, Saqib Sameer and others.
