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| Audience laughing during a stand up comedy |
‘Have you ever
listened to someone tell a story – over coffee, at church, or at a conference –
and been absolutely bored to tears? Or worse: the story was interesting but
there doesn’t seem to be a point.
Maybe the meat of the
story you heard was interesting, but for some reason you couldn’t stay engaged.
Or perhaps you heard an anecdote that completely blew you away, but when you
tried to retell it, it didn’t have nearly the same impact.’
Trust me you are not
alone. Many have found themselves in such awkward situations and they have
accepted and moved on sometimes red faced while others know exactly how take
advantage of such situations.
Again there are times when some other person delivering a joke but instead
as the listener, you feel more embarrassed than the person delivering the piece
of joke.
Well not all jokes
have the same effect. It all boils down to delivery. I can authoritatively state that
finding an international comedian who can tickle and excite different masses hilariously is as hard as looking for a needle in a hay stack.
So are our local
comedians funny? Yes they are. But they are not as sharp and piercing to a point where they leave
one rolling on the floor laughing out loud. Presently they are just the best we
have for lacking the best that can perform the task with apt dexterity and some
tinge of meticulousness.
Ideally I would have loved to laugh so hard and have tears streaming down my eyes when I watch and listen to our beloved comedians. I want to be like 'Who comes up with this stuff?'
I am not a hater neither am I a critic.
It is sometimes good to point out some of the many inadequacies that the comedy
industry has suffered owing to the fact that it has metamorphosized
from the original nascent stages that were characterized by a lot of mediocrity
and frivolity.
What is lacking in the Kenyan industry
when it comes to comedy should have been capitalized on by the comedians.
However, that is not the case, they are not that witty. They sometimes steal
jokes from social sites and what is intriguing is that they retell simple yet
lackluster jokes that are sometimes recycled to a point where they become
stale.
That our comedians lack efficacy in executing memorable punch lines is not in
doubt. The few who have the skill are not proving to be worth their salt. Their
lackluster performance is exhibited by the fact that they cram the content they
are to narrate to an audience and at times they usually struggle literally on
the dais while presenting their skits. Worse is the fact that a comedian laughs
at the jokes he has delivered. Seriously, this is joking. You can hardly recall
such jokes after the event.
That is why sometimes I tend to have a
huge attachment to a comedian like Basket Mouth. He delivers to his best. The
faces he makes and the way he acts after a hilarious punch line, it’s
speechless. He becomes serious and that is way much satisfying than these local
comedians who laugh along to their jokes notwithstanding the fact that they may
not have tickled your ribs into a frenzy.
Am I going to offer any solutions? Yes. It is my task to do so since I find the industry has failed to take off to the next stage. It has
relied so much on Churchill at present and those who have been scouted have not
delivered. They are still infants who have not found a niche they can positively
align to to stand out as brands that are synonymous to them as individuals.
That our comedians need to up their game is not in doubt. Like in any industry
continuity, amelioration and experience do count a lot and play a very big role. At the formative stages, the rewards
are usually unpleasant and it takes those who have an ear for comedy and a
third eye to notice some of the comic effects in life. This can be complemented
by good oratory skills and a tinge of class. Again relying on ones thought
solely only does not usually result in some of the funniest pieces. Having
script writers will aid when one runs out of jokes. But the jokes should at the
very least be original.
If all along you have not found something funny in this
article, then you are in the right place since it was not meant to be a joke. Jokes
are supposed to be delivered by comedians. I can categorically declare that as
a nation, Kenya has a bunch of jokers disguised as comedians. They don’t fit
the billing of people we can attest to as comedians.
The form of comedy that has failed to evolve is that of telling tribal jokes through tonal
and voice variation by comedians to relay the anecdotes the deliver. Please! We
are in the 21 century. Tribal jokes as such should be a thing of the past. As
someone who aims at promoting local content through viewership, it disappoints
when someone is given a national platform and starts aping people from a certain
locality.
However there is still room for augmentation. Ideally Rome was not built in
one day and it's chimerical expect that the bunch of hilarious guys we have will make
it to the stage of becoming international comedians who can perform to a
foreign audience with ease and enthrall them to laugh heartily forgetting their
frustrations and inadequacies in life.
