BUBBLE RAP

Bulbulay is one of the longest running, perhaps the longest running, sitcom on Pakistani television. Ayesha Omar, who is now also a film star, plays one of the central characters in the story. The actress recently told a journo that “We’ve never signed a written contract for Bulbulay.” We think there’s nothing startling about it, given the nature of the show. ‘Written’ is a word that seldom comes to mind about it. And this is a compliment. The performances seem nicely improvised, if you know what we mean…

MOTHER OF NATION

A series based on the life of the Quaid-i-Azam’s sister, titled Fatima Jinnah and directed by Danial K. Afzal, is in the offing. News is that it’s going to release in August. In three seasons, the series focusing on the mother of the nation “aims to retell her story and those of the core characters who took on a vital role in the political, public and social life of a time that marked a significant shift in the geo-political landscape of our region.” The cast comprises Sundas Farhan, Amna Ilyas, Kubra Khan, Aamir Qureshi, Shehrzade Noor Peerzada, Mamya Shahjaffer, Saad Qureshi, Samina Ahmed, Manzar Sehbai, Omer Abdullah Khan, Komal Jamil, Shamim Hilaly, Mohammed Ehteshamuddin, Sarmad Khoosat and Usman Mukhtar. We can’t wait!

MARRIAGE CALL

Musician Hasan Raheem has made his fans worry a wee bit for him. The reason why we’re saying this are his incoherent posts on X that culminated in a sort of clarification. We will not go into what sentences he uploaded one by one, but we can tell you that he ended it by saying that all his exes have gotten married and now it his turn to tie the nuptial knot. Well, go ahead. But we feel coherence and clear-headedness might be in order to propose to someone.

SHARMEEN’S WARS

It seems that some right-wing Western commentators have not accepted the fact that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is directing the next edition of Star Wars. After the Oscar-winning director’s interview on CNN went viral, Ben Shapiro called one of the producers of the film, Kathleen Kennedy, “the worst entertainment executive” and Matt Walsh dug out an old clip of Sharmeen O C from Jon Stewart’s talk show, in which she says that she likes to make men uncomfortable. Matt W referred to her on X as “the feminist director of the next Star Wars film” and implied she was unsuited to helm a men-oriented movie. The farce is strong in these bigoted guys.

TO ACT OR NOT TO ACT

British actor Andrew Scott has garnered a tremendous fan-following in recent years. He is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation. Last week, during an interview, emphasising the importance of theatre etiquette, he said: “[In 2017] when I was playing Hamlet at Almeida Theatre, a guy took out his laptop — not his phone, his laptop — while I was in the middle of ‘to be or not to be’. I was pausing and [the stage team] were like, ‘Get on with it’ and I was like, ‘There’s no way’.” When he stopped saying his lines, the person sitting next to that guy who had opened his laptop apparently nudged him, after which he resumed watching the play. Hmmm… So, if the laptop man was on his phone, Andrew S wouldn’t have stopped him? The bigger the contraption, the bigger the distraction!

FRIENDS

Khushi Kapoor, the younger sibling of Jhanvi Kapoor and the star of The Archies, made her debut on Koffee with Karan. Jhanvi K was alongside her on the same sofa.K-Jo, the host of the programme, in his typical, and now boringly predictable, series of questions asked her whether she has a boyfriend. Her response was: “There’s this scene in Om Shanti Om where every actress says ‘Om and I are just friends’. So that’s what I’d like to say.” Alrighty then, she seems to be a better actress than her sis.

Published in Dawn, ICON, January 14th, 2024