And Ghanaians laughed again
As I write this piece, one thing that I still reminisce and will be with me for a very long time is the rib-cracking jokes, mannerisms and attitude of each of the comedians that mounted the stage at Accra International Conference Centre last Monday for the maiden Lords of the Ribs comedy show.
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All patrons who made their way to the Conference Centre had a lot to laugh about. As they made their way out of the auditorium, they had looks on their faces that clearly showed that indeed the show had lived to its hype.
Comedy shows hardly flop if it is organised well. Personally, I am yet to witness a single flop when our brothers from Nigeria are on the show. Charter House, the pioneers who elevated comedy shows in Ghana with their Nite of Laughs and Music series has managed to arouse people’s appetite for stand up comedy and whip up their interest.
Just like the Ghana Music Awards, Charterhouse has so successfully branded their biannual event and the comedy series has been fully accepted in Ghana. This is because; it affords patrons to de-stress themselves with good laughter.
With the enormous success of last Monday’s Lords of the Ribs show, now the onus lies with Ghanaian comedians to step up their game to be considered on such shows instead of always complaining and comparing themselves with other comedians. Apart from Funny Face who has established himself, the rest of Ghanaian comedians today have not been impressive at all.
In moving forward, Lords of the Ribs has set a new standard and further raised the bar which only goes to consolidate what Charterhouse has done over the years to promote stand-up comedy in Ghana.
The show was not devoid of too-familiar challenges. Due to Ghanaians’ late attendance to events, the show started almost two hours late. Everything was set for the organisers to start the show but patrons did not show up early. Clearly, the patrons delayed the start of the event. So why are event organisers lambasted when events starts late?
Can’t we shift the blame to patrons rather than always putting it on event organisers? If patrons do not have a problem attending shows late, then I want to believe that, they do not have the moral right to criticise event organisers when start of shows are delayed.
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From the VIP area, I occasionally turned to see if the auditorium was getting filled up as we went past the advertised time of 8pm and the flow was not encouraging. It would have been very bad to start the show with just few patrons. However after 9pm, the auditorium was filled up with every seat virtually occupied.
Hogan, a Nigeria-born, Ghana- based comedian opened the show. He gave a good account of himself. His high moment was when he joked about David Oscar who had boasted many times that he was funnier than most Nigerian comedians.
According to Hogan, it takes three days for anyone to understand David’s jokes; and this happens only after the person has consulted the dictionary. The person then laughs on the third day and shouts “David Oscar is funny”. He had the patrons in stitches with this particular joke.
Gandoki, Omo Baba Gordons and Bash followed with their own similarly side-splitting jokes. Ghana was adequately represented by musicians Rex Omar, Yaayaa and R2Bees.
I observed that none of Ghana’s upcoming comedians were present to learn one or two things from the Nigerian comedians.
One of the things I learnt from them is that telling a joke is about approach, attitude and delivery and not how many times it has been told in the past.
Most of the jokes told on the night were jokes patrons had heard over and over again but the delivery made the difference.
by Ebenezer Anangfio/Graphic Showbiz