In 2024, comedy came roaring back. In 2025, it refused to stay in its lane. This was the year standup broke format—literally—jumping into live podcasting, roast gauntlets, and live shows that thrived on spontaneity. From tiny clubs to giant arenas, comedians embraced the love, chaos, banter, and thrill of going completely off-script.
The wins were everywhere—new-format hits, sold-out tours, comics starring in shows and movies, writing memoirs, and even launching their own fragrance line. The biggest names in entertainment lined up to collaborate with them, while comedians themselves kept slipping into unexpected lanes—from political commentary to culinary collabs.
But 2025 also reminded us that telling jokes can still be hazardous. FIRs, legal notices, online outrage storms, cancellations and a worrying rise in physical threats kept the darker side of comedy in sharp focus.
It was a year of innovation, ambition, conflict, and pure, unfiltered energy. And as always, we’ve got the highs, the lows, and the absolute WTFs lined up. Let’s get into it.
The Highs
Indian Comedy’s Global Takeover Continued
This year felt like the one where Indian comics stopped being a novelty abroad and started behaving like a touring army. The headline moment was Zakir Khan selling out Madison Square Garden with an entirely Hindi set, performing to 6,000 adoring fans. The all-Hindi show played like a statement: Indian comedy belongs on the biggest stages.
That global momentum showed up everywhere. Khan also smashed attendance records at the Dubai Comedy Festival, reportedly setting the festival record for most tickets sold by a comedian. Vir Das continued to cement his international profile, scoring a historic Lincoln Center Theatre residency and appearing across festival programming. Meanwhile, other comedians spread Indian comedy’s flare in other parts of the globe. Rahul Subramanian snagged a nomination for the Most Outstanding Show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Urooj Ashfaq, Prashashti Singh and Shamik Chakrabarti were fixtures on the festival bills at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Touring was on the year’s to-do list. Our own round-up of comics on the road this summer listed some 15+ Indian acts taking shows to Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and North America—Samay Raina’s multi-city Europe, Australia and New Zealand run was just one high-profile example.
Bottom line: 2025 wasn’t a one-off export moment. It was momentum. Indian comedians are now a reliable international draw, and the international bookers, festivals and residencies are taking notice.
India Continued To Be A Pitstop For International Comedy
This year saw a flurry of big-name international comedians schedule (or reschedule) visits to India — a sign that the global comedy circuit finally sees Indian cities as worth touring. On paper, the biggest landing was Kevin Hart. His Acting My Age tour was originally slated for April 30 in New Delhi, marking his first India show ever. But the gig was pulled at the last moment and rescheduled for a Mumbai performance a few months later—a sign that, even in turbulence, global acts are betting on India as a serious stop.
The Loop by DeadAnt Live brought down Australian duo The Grade Cricketer Podcast and NYC’s beloved The Zarna Garg Family Podcast. Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss also flew in for a quick flash with his new work-in-progress hour pressure-tested in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, with a promise to return in 2027 for a much bigger tour next year with his latest, ‘Bitter’. And here’s a reminder for your calendar: New York-based comedian Gianmarco Soresi is set to come to India in February (stay tuned, we’ve got more!).
Closing out the quarter, a sneaky pop-in from late night royalty Conan O’Brien made some noise as he hopped cities to shoot for his travel show Conan O’Brien Must Leave. And the Tech Roast Show and Max Amini both returned for tours to play for their favourite new markets here.
Comedians and Comedy Content Creators Took To The Big Screen
Boil comedy down to its essence and you have two main skills—writing and performing. Both of which naturally translate to film and television. And in 2025, Indian comedians didn’t just make the jump to screen… they practically colonised it.
When he wasn’t selling out international venues, Vir Das was quietly working on his directorial debut Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jaasoos, in which he also plays the titular character, with a cast that includes Mona Singh and Mithila Palkar, and cameos by Aamir and Imran Khan. It’s rare to see an Indian standup comedian take a full-fledged directorial swing at a commercial feature—but if there’s one person who can nail it, something tells us it’s Das.
Comedy’s presence on mainstream Indian television also shot up this year. Anubhav Singh Bassi, Abhishek Upmanyu, Harsh Gujral and Ravi Gupta all appeared on Kaun Banega Crorepati—a show that now seems to be actively courting comics. Even Tanmay Bhat and Samay Raina joined the KBC-verse this year. And for your calendars: Vir Das is up next on 1 January.
There was no shortage of screen crossovers elsewhere either. Improv artist Neville Bharucha made his Netflix debut in Aryan Khan’s The Ba***ds of Bollywood. Abish Mathew landed a spot on Eugene Levy’s Apple TV+ series The Reluctant Traveler. Karthik Kumar joined the cast of the Tamil medical drama Heart Beat. Munawar Faruqui starred in the web series First Copy. Aaditya Kulshreshth, already busy roasting contestants on Bigg Boss alongside Gurleen Pannu and Sumaira Shaikh, also showed up in the feature film Loveyapa. Speaking of Bigg Boss, comedian Pranit More entered the house as a contestant this season and is a favourite to win the grand prize.
They didn’t just stick to one genre, either. Aadar Malik showed off his acting chops in Testament, a full-blown Christian drama series. Varun Thakur took a darker turn in the crime drama Search: The Naina Murder Case, proving that deadpan timing translates surprisingly well to murder-mystery tension. Kusha Kapila continued her steady streak of screen work, appearing in the new season of Maamla Legal Hai and releasing the short film Vyarth, while Sumukhi Suresh and creator Erika Packard competed in the reality show Chhoriyan Chali Gaon.
Pull it all together and you get a year where comedians weren’t just “making appearances”—they were embedded in film and TV in a way that feels structural, not novelty-driven. Reality shows, dramas, thrillers, streaming originals, and now even full-fledged feature debuts. If 2024 proved that comedians could succeed on screen, 2025 proved that they belong there.
Let There Be Format Shows
2025 turned formats into a quickly scaling, full-blown habit. Across YouTube, OTT and live rooms, comedians swapped solo, one-hour sets for repeatable show formats: game rounds, judged open mics, roast series and panel experiments that folded audience interaction and studio banter into the main event. That wasn’t accidental—formats are easier to monetise, easier for brands to sponsor, and easier to scale into seasons or live tours.
Leaning into a format isn’t entirely new (Raunaq Rajani’s Relationsh*t Advice has been around for over five years now, for instance), but Samay Raina’s India’s Got Latent was the most visible example of that shift in 2025: a Kill Tony-inspired format that rapidly became a cultural moment, pulling millions of views per episode and creating viral live-tapings. It got everyone’s attention from celebrities to political parties, the latter even making memes based on the show to take shots at their rivals. Tickets were sold out in minutes. They were resold for hiked prices. It served as an incredible launchpad for contestants who went of the show, i.e. Sharon Verma and Naman Arora among others. Everyone wanted a taste of Latent. But it all imploded (more on that later).
But picture toh abhi baaki thi. Over the year, we saw a slew of other format-driven experiments take over the Indian internet. Dating-game roasts like Assisted Dating, blind-date chaos on Andha Pyaar, panel-roast like The BroCode Roast, competition-style open mic showcases such as Madhur Model, sharp-tongued talk-formats including Lie Hard, and even a startup vs standup Shark Tank-inspired format, Pitch Please—we had a bit of everything. And more folks like Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhat and Tarang Hardikar have announced their own impending forays into the format game.
The driving force behind this shift feels both practical and tactical. The rising content demands from platforms plus the need for a steady output had comedians innovating. Formats—with their recurring structure—made that possible. Comedians told us all about that here.
These shows opened up the comedy night to more people. It was no longer just the usual set-goers, but fans who wanted a little bit of spectacle, audience participation, or just something that feels unpredictable and social. And for comics, it became a way to build a personal brand, try new jokes, and even scout new talent.
But the rise of format shows is also comes with some growing pains such as the risk of content fatigue, oversaturation, and a recycling of tropes (dating shows, roast humour, competitive panel jokes). Several on Reddit argue that after two years of a boom, many shows feel like reruns of each other, raising the quantity but sometimes compromising quality. (Yes, even format-show fatigue is now a meme. We’ll have to see when this format show bubble bursts but for now, they’re here to stay.
Extra Curricular Activities
In 2025, Indian comedy quietly outgrew the idea of the “set.” More comedians stopped chasing one-off laughs and started building ecosystems—brands, books, formats, and platforms that treated audiences less like ticket buyers and more like stakeholders.
Kusha Kapila was among the clearest signals of that shift. With the launch of Underneat, her shapewear and innerwear brand backed by Fireside Ventures and Ghazal Alagh, Kapila stepped decisively from creator to founder—building something designed to outlast trends, formats, and algorithms.
Kenny Sebastian followed with The Stage, a fragrance line created in collaboration with Bombay Shaving Company. With scents named Mic Check and Spotlight, it wasn’t novelty merch—it was an extension of his performer identity, translating the emotional arc of stand-up into a tangible product.
Then there’s Vir Das, who added author to an already global résumé with The Outsider. Less a greatest-hits reel, more a personal archive—from immigrant grind to International Emmy nights.
Meanwhile, Kunal Kamra continued to push comedy where it’s least comfortable, turning his YouTube channel into a hybrid of satire, journalism, and public discourse through formats like Khabr-e-Azam and Jan Hith Mein Jaari.
The pattern is unmistakable. Indian comedians aren’t just telling jokes anymore—they’re building worlds. And in 2025, that stopped feeling like a side project and started looking like the main job.
The Lows
India’s Got FIR(s)
The biggest flashpoint of the year was, unquestionably, India’s Got Latent. What started as Samay Raina’s scrappy, DIY spin on Kill Tony—a platform for emerging artists to bomb, experiment, and occasionally shine—turned into a national headline machine. A controversial episode triggered multiple FIRs across states, with complainants citing “obscenity,” “abusive language,” and “insult to cultural values.”
Clips were circulated out of context, politicians weighed in, and the moral-policing squads went into hyperdrive. Raina found himself facing not just complaints but Supreme Court scrutiny, with the court declaring itself “deeply disturbed” by remarks from a Canada show, later ordering him and co-accused comics to issue formal apologies.
The ripple effect was immediate. Comedian Harsh Gujral pulled down his entire show The Escape Room. Comedy clubs reportedly tightened content guidelines. And a show built on spontaneity became the cautionary tale of the year.
And Then There Were More… FIR(s)
Lately, telling jokes in India feels like you’re sitting at the high rollers table where offence is called and raised at every turn. 2025 saw some of the harshest backlash in recent years: FIRs, police summons, vandalised venues, censorship demands and a creeping sense that freedom of expression is inching toward a privilege, not a right.
Kunal Kamra had a particularly turbulent (or content-heavy, depending on how you see it) year. His new standup special Naya Bharat released on YouTube, sparked political backlash for joking about Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and landed him a fresh FIR. It also resulted in a show-cause notice from the Maharashtra Legislative Council for allegedly “demeaning democratic institutions.” Kamra responded on X in his signature tone: “Jokes are my right.”
The rage was not limited to the comedian. A mob of Shiv Sena workers landed up at The Habitat, where Kamra had recorded his special, and vandalised the venue. Footage from the incident showed broken glass and overturned furniture inside the premises. No injuries were reported.
Munawar Faruqui was back in legal crosshairs after a complaint sought action against his show Hafta Vasooli for “promoting vulgarity” and “insulting religion”—an eerily familiar cycle for a performer who’s spent half his career explaining punchlines to police stations.
Daniel Fernandes, known for navigating sensitive topics with surgical precision, received a legal notice demanding the removal of a video on the Pahalgam terror attack. He refused, publicly defending satire’s role in social critique.
Comedian Maheep Singh was forced to cancel shows in Dehradun following threats for performing “vulgar” comedy. Comedy superstar Kapil Sharma too was warned by an MNS leader for referring to Mumbai as “Bombay”.
It Also Got Physical
One of the darkest threads running through 2025 was the way physical violence crept into the comedy ecosystem, breaking the already-thin illusion that the worst thing a joke can do is offend someone online. Early in the year, Solapur comedian Pranit More was assaulted after a show by a group of 10–12 men who pretended to be fans before surrounding him outside the venue. According to the FIR and More’s own social media post, the attack was retaliation for jokes he’d made about actor Veer Pahariya — the men punched and kicked him, warned him against ever mentioning Pahariya again.
A few months later, comedian Nalin Yadav resurfaced with a grim update of his own. In a widely shared Instagram video, Yadav claimed he and his brother had been attacked by four men in Pithampur, the latest in what he described as years of harassment by local goons and politically connected groups. The video showed his injuries and detailed how authorities allegedly dismissed their complaints. He also said that an earlier assault had left his brother with a fractured leg and that they’d been unable to return home for years. He alleged police inaction in both cases.
Coming from someone who had already spent time in jail in the infamous 2021 Munawar Faruqui case, Yadav’s testimony added a disturbing dimension to the state of performer safety—not just online trolling, not just FIRs, but escalating, real-world violence with little institutional protection.
When Late-Night Got Silenced
It wasn’t just India. Across the world, comedy found itself in the firing line.
Jimmy Kimmel was taken off air temporarily after controversial comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk sparked political pressure and advertiser anxiety—another data point in America’s ongoing culture-war tug-of-war.
On 17 July 2025, CBS shocked the world by canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert—despite it remaining one of late-night television’s most-watched shows. The network cited “financial realities,” but many speculated the decision had more to do with a recent US$16 million settlement with Donald Trump, and corporate pressure stemming from a merger involving CBS’s parent company.
Colbert didn’t go gentle. In the first episode after the cancellation news, he opened with a monologue that left little to doubt. Addressing the president directly, he glared at the camera and said, “Go f**k yourself,” on the segment Eloquence Cam.
In that moment, Colbert’s fight-back became more than a personal act—it turned into a statement about what late-night comedy stands for (or used to stand for): a space where power can be mocked aloud… until it tries to shut the mic off.
Bidding Farewell To Comedy Greats
The hardest part of every year is saying goodbye to some of our favourite performers, as they make their way to the great open-mic in the sky. Among the comedians and actors we mourned this year was veteran Indian actor Asrani. Another Bollywood legend, who made his mark with certain comedy roles including Chupke Chupke, Johnny Gaddar and Sholay, Dharmendra passed at the age of 89. We also said goodbye to Diane Keaton, Ken Flores, George Lowe (American Dad!) and Lynne Marie Stewart (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia).
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