22 Jun 2015

The second annual comedy and poetry night at Tati River Lodge on June 19 left the audience in stitches.

Rising comedians, Oefile ‘Mawee’ Mokgware and Phenyo ‘The Master’ Phaladi tickled the audience with dazzling performances in a cold night during the Major Moves Comedy night.

Although the event commenced later than the schedule 7pm starting time, the mood was set when the duo outshone other comedians on the night, in the process endearing themselves to the crowd that had gathered for an event that is becoming a regular fixture in the Francistown entertainment calendar.

The highly energetic, comic and fun loving Mawee from Gabane and The Master from Mochudi, who had promised the audience rib-cracking material, delivered exactly what they meant when they took the stage.

Mawee worked his magic on stage when he told a story of his life using a combination of words and music while The Master moved the audience with not only his words but gestures as well. The two definitely gave the audience their money’s worth and lived up to their expectation because the crowd cheered on from start till finish.

Other local comedians who were featured on the show who were on top of their game included Augustus from Francistown who is an up and coming comedian. He took the audience to the climax with his combination of poetry and comedy.

He not only boasted about representing Ghetto, but also moved the crowd with his jokes ranging from imitating the Malawian accent, his view on fire churches to singing his lungs out.

Another up and coming comedian, Boniface ‘Bonnie’ Phetolo put quite a show and handled the disturbance caused by one drunkard well and made a joke out of it. That was impressive for someone who is striving to be a professional comedian to handle such unexpected incidents like a professional.

On the other hand, the headline poet from South Africa, Dr Mohlouoa Ntsasa started his performance in a unique manner by performing all the way from the entrance. He mesmerised the crowd with poems entitled ‘Time’, ’A man’ as well as ‘My name’ to mention a few.

The piece of art he presented were quite impressive and had the audience cheering on, however, he lost his fan base when he began reading from a long scroll of paper such that the audience dismissed him even before he completed reading.

For someone like him who is not only a poet laureate, but also a novelist, a motivational speaker, an acclaimed linguist, an actor as well as an academic, it was quite a disappointment to see him reading from a long piece of paper written word for word.

The award winning South African comedian Mashabela Galane closed up the show with a rather controversial piece of work that was too explicit and he picked on the audience to make jokes about them. Instead of laughing with the audience, he laughed at the audience which did not seem to strike a chord. ENDS