Star power isn’t what it used to be. It must pose a dilemma to organisers of award shows as they go about assembling the building blocks for a grand ceremony. Long gone are the days when you could just truss up a galaxy of stars in designer wear and create hype.

In Pakistan’s concentric, perpetually interlinked fashion and entertainment industries, a motley crew of celebrities make repetitive appearances, ricocheting from the red carpet to the catwalk to the morning show appearance to the movie premiere to product endorsements and then back again, posting images of themselves on social media all the while. The razzle dazzle, exclusivity and sheer novelty of celebrity spotting simply wanes with all the overexposure.

And so, while the second QMobile Hum Style Awards (QHSA) drew in a slew of stars, there needed to be so much more to add spunk to the ceremony. QHSA tried but didn’t always exceed.

Stumbling, stalling, rising, falling — the show that was the QMobile Hum Style Awards

To be fair, all awards shows go on and on, yo-yoing from memorable moments to humdrum instances and a successful event proves its mettle by being somewhat less of a drag than its contenders. But when a show starts late by an hour-and-a-half, it sets an ominous tone right at the start. One may argue that this is the sad case with all such events but the Lux Style Awards — the other, much older ‘style authority’ we have — set a precedent this year by wrapping up around a chaste midnight. An earlier show, simply, leads to a more energetic one. By contrast, like the LSA awards of the past, the QHSA dragged on till almost Fajr, by which time most of the guests had long departed.

Nevertheless, the QHSA had its highs: the award wins were interesting and led to the usual controversies about who should or shouldn’t have won — in local circles, that’s proof of an awards montage being successful. There were times when the night rocked; for instance, in the fabulous opening act featuring Saba Qamar …

The moves, grooves, hits and misses

Post a Bollywood hit and a ballsy role in a TV serial as the one based on the life of Qandeel Baloch, Saba Qamar is the star of the moment. Having ostensibly spurned awards shows in the past, it was intriguing that she had come on board QHSA as host for the ceremony, along with Ali Kazmi and Farhan Saeed. Her spunky opening act, where she sang and gyrated to ‘Bang, Bang, loag star bun jaatay hain’, deriding the self-obsessed ways of the entertainment world, set the evening off to a promising start.

Later, she joined Farhan Saeed — who was smooth if uninspiring as a host — for on-stage banter and acted out parodies where she played a lawn-obsessed ‘auntie’, a bawdy model and Mahira Khan. And it could have worked, except that the skits weren’t funny and only occasionally tapped Saba’s potential as an actor.

Syra Shehroz and Asim Azhar’s dance proved to be a highlight. It was fluid, well-choreographed and the troupe of background dancers flown in from Dubai were more light-footed than our befuddled local counterparts. The group of young teenage boys who came on stage towards the end of the performance had some very slick moves that had one cheering.

One appreciates that local music was used during the dances. The Quratulain Baloch and Atif Aslam performance later in the evening, though, had Atif singing a small excerpt from one of his Indian songs before proceeding to pay ode to musical legends. The combined talents of Atif and QB are, of course, a win-win although there wasn’t newness to the performance simply because the talented Mr Aslam had owned the LSA stage as well, earlier this year.

Asim Azhar and Farhan Saeed’s finale act was pleasing while Ayesha Omer’s was not. Polish choreographer and dancer Ilona Bekier was a touch above the rest and her effortless dancing was riveting. Ahsan Khan dances well but one has seen him work his moves on stage far too many times to comment.

Was that a joke?

The QHSA’s greatest, most glaring flaw, though, was a lacklustre script. The witticisms fell flat and the sarcasm seemed a bit below the belt. There is a way in which jibes can be worded so that they can sound funny and scriptwriters Ali Gul Pir and Akbar Chaudhry clearly haven’t discovered the formula for it.

The QHSA’s greatest, most glaring flaw, though, was a lacklustre script. The witticisms fell flat and the sarcasm seemed a bit below the belt. There is a way in which jibes can be worded so that they can sound funny and scriptwriters Ali Gul Pir and Akbar Chaudhry clearly haven’t discovered the formula for it.

For instance, Saba Qamar cockily comparing the box office earnings of Fawad Khan’s Bollywood film Khoobsurat with her own seemed downright petty. Similarly, her gushing over Shah Rukh Khan a la Mahira Khan made the latter actress look like a veritable ditz. It’s all right to poke fun at fellow celebrities — awards shows do it all the time and the likes of Ahmed Ali Butt and Yasir Hussain usually get it right — but it has to be done in a certain glib way that was lacking here.

A segment in which Farhan Saeed chose to ask Bushra Ansari and Sajal Aly to sing for the audience met applause … but then Farhan decided to extend the same offer to his wife Urwa Hocane. Her tone-deaf rendition didn’t bode well for a far-reaching platform such as Hum and it’s an error that our stars make quite often. They seem to be so eager for the limelight that they end up making themselves look mediocre. Shoaib Akhtar, for instance, quipped at Hum Network’s President Sultana Siddiqui to ‘help him’ should his game show for Geo TV close down. It hardly befits a cricketer of his stature. Star power certainly isn’t what it used to be.

Fashion and the faux pas

Some of the stars, though, did uplift the ceremony with their wardrobe choices. For once, the shaadi-wear that is often paraded about the red carpet was set aside for well-constructed designer gowns. Sajal Aly, for instance, wore a masterfully draped design by Zaheer Abbas. Nabila, who always gets it right, wore Wasim Khan; Saheefa Jabbar came wearing Jeem by Hamza Bokhari and models Hira Shah and Amna Babar opted for minimalist Sana Safinaz.

There were also fashion faux pas galore — it sadly seems to be an inevitable outcome of any major event in the country. Making things worse was the very busy backdrop of the red carpet which was constructed from a mish-mash of colour, splattered with sponsors’ logos. It was hardly the right backdrop for celebrity images and did no favours to some of the more ghastly red carpet gowns.

And so the QHSA stumbled, struggled and occasionally managed to please. Two years down the line, this show may now be on the road but it still has a long way to go.

Published in Dawn, ICON, October 29th, 2017