Is it not amazing that we have so many comedians these days?
Oh yes, everybody is now a comedian. It is not funny. Let me give you an instance. You are about to catch a flight and you are already running late. You dash towards the door of the aircraft and waited for the security man to frisk you quickly so you could enter the plane. And while he is doing that, he is telling you, ‘bros, I don dey look for you since o. Me sef, I dey do comedy o. I fit tell you one of my jokes abeg.’ Can you imagine?
Is it affecting your business now that everybody is a ‘comedian’?
No way. The more the merrier. It is good that the industry is growing. But we ought to know whether the people coming in have the staying power.
How come you guys don’t have an association to check all this?
We actually have. It might not be a registered association yet but we have and we call for meetings every now and then. Our schedules are very crazy. You call for meetings and half of us are not there. We are very close in the entertainment industry. We don’t have any factions. We all see ourselves as brothers.
Are there days you wish you were not a comedian?
Oh yes. I feel that way when I go to negotiate for a show where there would be musicians as well. I hear how much they would be paying the musicians and I compare it with how much they would want to pay me. Those times, I would wish I was a musician and not a comedian. I will be the one who will stand from the beginning till the end of the show. The musician will just come and perform for ten to 15 minutes and he is being paid so much. Oh! Music is what I should have done. I don’t know why God didn’t give me a good voice.
But some people cringe when they hear how much comedians pocket just because they make people laugh…
It is the same way I cringe when I hear how much they are now using to buy bullet proof BMW cars. I cringe, ‘crange’ and ‘crunge’. The car is even more expensive than a plane. That car will certainly take one to heaven.
Do some people meet you and expect you to crack jokes for them even when you are not in the mood?
It is a very common thing. I get that all the time. Even some junk reporters do that. They would finish interviewing me and they would tell me to give them a sample of my jokes. I always ask them if after interviewing Bash Ali, the boxer, would they ask him to give them a sample of his skills?
How come you always wear suspender for your show Time out with Tee A?
It just happened like that when we were thinking of the styling for the show, I decided to go for it since I wear shirt and tie and suit all the time. I didn’t want to look that formal. I didn’t want to wear bow tie. I just wanted to wear something I didn’t always wear. But then, I didn’t realise then that it could be difficult to get suspenders in the shops when I eventually chose that style for the show. Each time I travelled abroad, I always look out for unique suspenders and I made sure I bought as many as possible.
Why is D’banj performing again this year at the life edition of your show?
We took it to Twitter and asked our fans who they would want to see in this edition. It was almost unanimous. Everybody wanted D’banj. I was surprised because this was the same guy we had last year though on the hot seat. Tuface performed last year while D’banj was on the hot seat. For this year, the reverse is the case. The flow of this year’s show has been exciting in my mind. I know people will thoroughly enjoy themselves.
NONYE BEN-NWANKWO AND ADEMOLA OLONILUA
No comments:
Post a Comment