When we spoke to Abish Mathew a few weeks ago, the actor, comedian and producer confided that by going digital with his latest season of Son of Abish, he has taken one of the biggest risks in his career. Going by the comments the first two episodes have garnered, it looks like the risk has paid off and how!
The popular talk show’s earlier seasons hosted by the ace comedian have seen some truly talented and well-known personalities including Vidya Balan, Vir Das, Vicky Kaushal, Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu and the late Irrfan Khan among many others grace the hot-seat, or should we say, the hot sofa!
The sofa is no more around in the seventh season, as the host, guests, as well as the audience are at home, making this a platform for a cool digi-live experience for everyone. Fun conversations with the audience, guests from around the world talking about things that matter and even some original music and art – there’s lots in store for fans of Son of Abish! Excerpts from a conversation with Abish:
For someone so used to being out and about, how was it being in lockdown for so long?
Well, nothing changed really. I do video calls with friends and audio calls for work-related stuff. For an extrovert like me, nothing much has changed because I just told myself, ‘Hey, you saw them in person earlier, now you see them on a six-inch screen’. The digital transition is like a double-edged sword. You’re not meeting anyone new so that’s not good but you are not meeting anyone annoying either! (laughs)
How much has work changed for you?
I wouldn’t say the work has changed but it has evolved. Initially, when the lockdown had started, people were worried about jobs and careers were at stake. But what’s happening now is that creative people have figured out how to make it work in any situation. People are shooting movies on their phones and even editing them on their devices.
Son of Abish was a show I decided to do because I love live audiences and I love working with a team. Because of the pandemic, I thought I won’t be able to do both, but the idea of doing it digitally struck me during one of the video calls with my parents who live in Canada. I was doing the dishes and my parents were there and I remember we laughed so hard because we found out some embarrassing fact about my dad. That got me thinking, that if I can laugh this way during a screen conversation, then I can give the show a try too.
Have the criteria for choosing your guests changed because of the situation in the past few months?
It has and it’s been a blessing in disguise. In the previous seasons, we had to fly our guests down from across the country and that’s a huge expense. Now, everyone is at home. Instead of reaching out to our current talent pool in India, we also reached out to the international talent pool. For instance, we got actor-comedian Asif Ali, who has a comedy collective with Hasan Minhaj to come on the show. Hari Kondabolu, one of the biggest social brown voices in America is also part of one of the episodes. We got American actor Utkarsh Ambudkar of Pitch Perfect fame and Raftaar to come and talk about Indian hip hop and American hip hop. They both love each other’s work and showed so much respect for each other. It was so cool to get that on camera.
So, on some level, even the content has changed?
Yes absolutely. Everyone globally is at a very different place in their lives because everything has changed. There has been a shift – internal or external. Without our realizing, we have all become just a tad bit anxious. The pandemic has also made everyone slightly more human and empathetic. There are some deep talks that have come out of these conversations.
How many episodes will be aired this time?
So, this time, we are not putting a cap on the number of episodes. Usually, we would do 8 or 10 episodes of Son of Abish. What I want to do is to release a new episode every Friday at 8 pm on YouTube. I want to see if I can float a weekly show for a year. Let’s see.
Abish Mathew for TMM
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