On Thursday, the 10th of July, after a 15-hour bus drive from Nairobi, the comedy Culture team, alongside their photographer touched down in the coastal town of Lamu. Their aim; to deliver an unforgettable night of laughter to the residents on the evening of the 13th.
After a 20-minute boat ride, and a further 10-minute motorcycle ride to the Airbnb, the team embarked on a mission to let as many people know about the show, A Child Of The Mau Mau, a stand-up comedy tour supported by the French Government as part of the Hii Stage Tour Grant. After dumping their belongings at the Airbnb, the team kicked off the marketing campaign.
The first item on the marketing bucket list was to distribute flyers containing the details of the show to the locals and explain the concept behind it. Naturally, everyone they met was very eager to learn about the project. But the excitement on some faces quickly dissipated when they learned that the show was going to be fully in English. Lamu, and the coastal region at large, is primarily Swahili-speaking. The team assured them that they would try to modify the show material to fit the demographic. This quelled some concerns but it did the opposite to the team. Modifying a comedy show is not as easy as it sounds especially when language is involved. But heck, the show had to go on, come rain (it did rain, quite a bit) come sunshine.
The marketing campaign ended on Thursday evening and resumed on Friday where the team spoke to more people, distributed flyers, reassured more skeptical locals, and even conducted an extremely insightful workshop session with the local artists. Then came D-day.
Saturday the 13th was calm, although it did rain in the morning and sporadically throughout the day. This was initially a slight cause for concern but by evening the weather was fairly calm, the Gods indeed do come through.
The show’s venue, Lamu Youth Alliance started filling up slowly and by 7:30, the show’s official kick-off time, there was a sizeable crowd gathered in the room. No time was wasted as the show kicked off with two local comedians and two Musicians warming up the crowd. After the warmup session, the host, Jack Otis, introduced Marcus Douglas who welcomed Maina Munene to the stage. Munene started on a high and he never dipped. He expertly dissected through his material while occasionally engaging the crowd. Half an hour later, the job was done and it was done exceptionally.
The jokes didn’t even need to be modified because as it turns out laughter is a universal language.
