Layers of darkness that lie behind and around the glitter and glamour of Mumbai showbiz pervades Showtime, a Disney+Hotstar series produced by Dharmatic Entertainment. Employing broad and familiar strokes, the show has no dearth of vim and vigour. Not much of it percolates beneath its shiny surface.
Be that as it may, the first four episodes of Showtime – the next bunch is scheduled to arrive in June – possess just about enough vitality to be able to sustain the interest of the audience, if only in a superficial sort of way.
Showtime, created by Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani co-writer Sumit Roy and headlined by Emraan Hashmi, is a somewhat watered-down present-day variant of last year’s Amazon Prime period drama series Jubilee, set in the Hindi film industry of the studio era. Shorn of the history and politics of, and in, the world outside the pale of the film industry, Showtime probes a segment of moviedom and seeks to peel back the layers off the grime behind the glitz of a high-stakes business that peddles pulp and pretends to be proud of it because it brings in huge profits.
Showtime, written by the show creator with Lara Chandni and Mithun Gangopadhyay and directed by Mihir Desai and Archit Kumar, weaves a yarn that perpetuates notions about the Mumbai dream factory that enjoy currency among netizens who have a love-hate relationship with Bollywood.
Even when it goes emphatically meta, Showtime does not go beyond known facts about filmmaking and its human and material resources. But the series works if you do not expect any piercing insights. It is buoyed by a clutch of effective performances by the principal actors.
Showtime is a vehicle that has a passably robust undercarriage that holds the structure together but it is an exercise that is hampered somewhat when it comes to filling the canvas with the sort of detailing that is not already in the public domain.
It talks about all the things that we talk about when we talk about contemporary Hindi cinema – crass commercialism, nepotism, the hubris of stardom, salacious scandals, the obsession with box office numbers, manipulation of reviews, acts of sabotage, the law of diminishing returns, the rising power of southern cinema and the eternal conflict between art and commerce.
The show seems at times to be chuckling at the very industry that has produced it. Or is the joke on the audience that is going to consume it? No matter what, Showtime is a well-packaged, consciously calibrated confessional. It puts Bollywood under the scanner but it is in the mood for transparency only as long as too many ‘real’ skeletons do not tumble out of the closet.
A movie mogul’s days are numbered. A younger player wants to play the game by his own rules. A couple of women grapple with the opportunities and challenges that come their way and compel them to leave their comfort zones. A full-of-himself male megastar is convinced he is God.
The entire jingbang, men and women caught in a vortex of rapid shifts – some of their own making – that they struggle to come to terms with, is fair game. In an unanticipated turn of events, Victor Kapoor (Naseeruddin Shah), the aged boss of Viktory Studios, a Mumbai film production company celebrating its 40th anniversary, springs an unpleasant surprise on his brash male heir, Raghu Kapoor (Emraan Hashmi).
