| The Great Indian Laughter Challenge | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy |
| Format | Standup comedy |
| Country of origin | India |
| Language(s) | Hindi |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | Approx. 48 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | STAR One |
| Picture format | SDTV: 480i |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Laughter Knights |
| Related shows | Comedy Circus |
The Great Indian Laughter Challenge is one of the very successful reality shows on Indian television. It is a competition of stand up comedians that is presented on STAR One. Produced by Endemol India, the fourth series of the show launched on June 6, 2008.
Contents |
It has run through three seasons where stand-up comedians and performers from different places came together and showed their comedy skills to judges, live audience and people. The show was judged by Shekhar Suman, an eminent TV personality and Navjot Singh Sidhu who a famous former cricketer and cricket commentator from India, known for his humorous "Sidhuisms." The show's initial episodes were hosted by Parizaad Kolah Marshall and later she was replaced by Shonali Nagrani. The set was designed by noted Bollywood production designer Nitin Chandrakant Desai [1]
In the first season, Sunil Pal was the winner whereas Ahsaan Qureshi was runner up. In the second season contestants from Pakistan were also present and the winner Rauf Lala was also from Pakistan. The third season was won by Kapil Sharma from Amritsar. Many other talented commedians like Sudesh Lehari, Rajiv Thakur, Jassi Kochar, Khayaali,Dipoo Srivastava, Raju Srivastava and Chandan Prabhakar have appeared in the show.
The first two seasons were followed by another show The Great Indian Laughter Champions which included top performers of the previous shows. Here also the judges were Sidhu and Shekar including some celebrity guests as well.
The fourth season features judges Navjot Singh Sidhu and popular actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who has replaced Shekhar Suman. Recently the first woman to participate was Aarti Kandpal. The fourth season's finalists were Rasbihari Gaur, Bharti Singh, Suresh Albela, and a duo from Pakistan. The winner for the fourth season after a tough laughter war was Suresh Albela.
Suresh Albela (Kota, Rajasthan)