30 Nov 2014

The inaugural Francistown comedy and poetry night on November 29 proved to be a huge success in the entertainment starved city.

The show started two hours late and the first acts to hit the stage were sluggish and only managed to make the audience crack with laughter on only a few occasions.

At the beginning, upcoming comedians from the Ghetto were given a platform to showcase their material and most of them did not impress as they failed to connect with the audience.

The first comedian on the stage, Augustus nearly killed the show when he started his act with mistimed explicit lines much to the dismay of some revelers. He really found it difficult to warm the crowd, which was already itching for some hilarious material. At one point, he found himself having to laugh at what he said without any response from the crowd.

Second on the stage was the General, whose jokes bordered on politics, social life and relationships. He made politicians the butt of his jokes and also got it wrong by throwing explicit material, which bordered on sexual stereotypes much to the chagrin of the crowd that did not approve of his antics.

One of the mistakes that many upcoming stand-up comedians made was that, they thought that it was possible to introduce themselves using blue material ,which was graphic and in most cases distasteful, especially for conservative audiences.

While it might be easy for established comedians to get away with this, this should be a no go area for young upstarts and green horns who are still trying to find their feet in the industry.

However, on Friday most of these green horns in stand-up comedy failed to read the mood of the audience and learn from the experience of the acts that came before them. This might prove costly in future as a comedian is only as good as his or her last act. These two were followed by Ouza who at least made the audience move with his presentations.

The audience really started connecting with the comedians when Phenyo the Master took to the stage. Though, he took some time to work the crowd to feats of laughter, he was let down by graphic material which left the crowd agape. As his act continued, he improved and had the crowd in stitches as they cheered him for his jokes on relationships and politics.

A few poets also took to the stage and dished out classical material in both Setswana and English much to the delight of the audience, but one could tell that their main interests was comedy.

However, the turning point for the night came when Oefile ‘Mawee’ Mokgware took to the stage. The winner of the President’s Day poetry comedy contest who also got second position during the 2014 Chibuku road to fame contest was in a class of his own.

He was organised and fused his jokes with a musical performance which had the crowd eating out of his palm. His rhythm, stage presence, timing, interaction with the crowd’s persona proved that he was inspired by the bad sets by those who preceded him.

His comedy piece was presented in the form of cracking jokes, punctuating it with a musical line whose words connected with what he had just given the crowd. The transition from one act to the other was also flawless showing that planning and research are important in stand-up comedy.

“My comedy is a storyline and I deliberately infused music into it because I have realised that audience respond better to music,” he said at the end of his performance.

He said comedy was a tough vocation which called for one to be up to date with current affairs. Mawee also encouraged local comedians to focus on local issues and not copy from South Africans whose value systems are different.

When the main act of the evening, Michael “Dignash” Morapedi took to the stage at ten in the evening the crowd had been worked up and it was easy for him to pick the tempo to another level, being the master of jokes that he is.

He did not waste time ripping into everyone, the President, his Vice, TB Joshua, Zimbabweans, Air Botswana, the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DISS) much to the delight of the fully packed Tati River Lodge conference centre.

 

He left his audience in stitches when he suggested that there was no need for a spy agency in Botswana as Batswana are generally very generous with information, including classified one.

 

“We as a people are amazing because we voluntarily give out information,” he said with an American accent. He also left the crowd in a hilarious state when he mentioned that elections are over and noted that people are surprised that the opposition did not do well north of Dibete.

“Can anyone tell me what moono is in Kalanga,” he asked much to the delight of the audience which by now had had enough of his jokes. He also took a dig at upcoming comedians who took the stage before him saying that they were trying to be like him but highlighted that with time they would get there.

At one point, he joked that there was a concern that government programmes were not reaching certain areas in the country while the Chibuku delivery trucks go there every day.

“Ke eng re sa pege mananeo a mo terakeng ya Chibuku ka yone e goroga ko Batswaneng, he said as the crowd burst into laughter at his creativity.

The organiser of the show, Bokang Gaobotse said in an interview that he was impressed with the attendance and performance of the acts. He said that they wanted to give upcoming stand-up comedians in Francistown the platform to showcase their talent and establish themselves.

“We are going to have the next show in February because we realised that entertainment was non-existent in Ghetto. Also, in future we want to involve the Francistown Investment Forum,” he said. ENDS