Comedy is a very rewarding
business, where you need zero capital to start up. Just your mouth, will push
you to a higher height
–Jesusparrot
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| Godwin, JP on Stage |
‘At a point, any comic action was seen as a sign of irresponsibility,
immaturity, and unseriousness. It is different today’ says Alibaba.
Comedy, as a
part of literary study is a form of literary communication. In Nigeria, it is
becoming a fast growing industry. Comedy is part of the arts and a fusion. It doesn’t
stand on its own. It’s just that in Nigeria, comedy is a developing industry.
That’s why, you still cannot study comedy or you have comedy as a course in
higher institutions.
 |
| Godwin, JP (Comedian) |
Until 1982,
comedy had never been taught as a credit course in a major American
university. Until 1984 there wasn’t a
single published textbook that detailed the structure of humour writing
fundamentals. Today, teaching comedy has become a grown industry. The first
comedy writing course at the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University
has become such a smash hit that students register a year in advance to occupy
one of the twenty allotted seats. More than twenty universities now have comedy
courses in the US. Workshops and seminars are frequently organised on the
benefits of humour in their personal as well as professional life.
In Nigeria, The
trend of the art is virtually taking a new shape, with the likes of Atoyota
Halleluya Akpobome (Alibaba), who started the stand-up comedy form in Nigeria.
Others are Julius Agwu (D’ Genius), Tunde Adewale (Tee A), Ajibola Adebayo
(HolyMallam), Ayo Richard Makun (AY), Bright Okpocha (BasketMouth), Koffi Idowu
‘Nuel, Owen Gee, Teju Oyelakin (TejuBaby Face), Seyi Law, Dan d’ Humourous, Godwin
Okhawere (JP) amongst others. Though, the comedy art in Nigeria can be dated
back to the era of Jimi Solanke, Moses Olaiya (Baba Sala), Mohammed Danjuma and
Papi Luwe. The art has indeed has effect on entertainment industry and Nigeria
as a whole.
Basically,
comedy is to induce laughter. And this is the social responsibility of any
comedian. It is no secret that laughter is the best medicine and the easiest
way to shed tears off one’s face. Imagine the way one feels after a good dose
of rip-roaring, side- splitting laughter? As most would say, it’s priceless!
But the road to unabashed humour was not always this easy, the lucrative and
even respected. Barely, twenty years ago would no parents condole the idea of
their child being the unofficial “class idiot” or jester, preferring for their wards
to go onto seemingly more respectable careers while towing the paths those
before had followed. In the true fashion that radical changes occur, a small
shift in the norm and a gradual tearing away from the fold, it began to be cool
to make people laugh and earn something for it. Concerts, sold-out shows and
comedy clubs are now a part of our lifestyle as a result of this important
mini-revolution in our social culture.
Benjamin Lehman, in his book ‘Comedy and Laughter’
states clearly that, “Laughter is said to be provoked by human manifestations.
The laughter, it is said to be corrective; we are invited to believe that the
chief end of comedy is to reform manners and dispositions. He further states,
“At the outset, we must observe that though we laugh at actions and utterances
in comedy, we do not laugh at the comedy as a whole. For the comedy as a whole
is serious work, making an affirmation about life that chimes with our
intuitive sense of how things are and with our deep human desire to have the necessary
and agreeable prevail and our even deeper human desire to arrest before our
minds a condition of things pleasant in itself and completely free from the
threat of time and disruption.
In “Comedy and Laughter”, Lehmann emphasis that
“comedy did not invent incongruity, it discovered it. Long before psychiatry
formulated analogous concepts, comedy discovered the masque, the disguise,
mistaken identity. Comedy found them what we call laughable, but on the deeper
level felt them as symbolic expression. It recognized in non-sequiturs the
verbal symbol of those minor derangements in the sequence of events which are
always present when we view reality with preconceptions. It found in wit – the
surprising juxtaposition implied or expressed and happily phrased- the verbal
suggestion of the infinite possibilities of being and of connection”.
To me, Laughter
is the surplus of life; it is a bubbling over of the emotions, a kind of spasm
of exuberance, a delight of the human heart that makes the thorax cackle; something
that warms the heart and delights the brain and the imagination so that men are
moved to overflowing delight. Really, Comedy depends on the eye of the
beholder, not on the character of the object he has in view, that nothing in
nature is categorically comic- whether it is so or not depends on what you make
of it. It would seem to follow that anything or everything is suitable subject
matter for comedy. From a strictly, philosophical point of view, that is so.
But comedy is a tradition as well as an idea; and to the writer and reader of
comedy the selection of subject matter and setting is as important as abstract
notions about art. Comedy depicts men and women in society.
Consequently, the
comedy industry in Nigeria is fast-becoming a productive end to meeting other
ends. This has become evident albeit popular on television or film, and in
today’s sold-out stand-up comedy shows. The manner of wave-making by youthful
geniuses at the art and act of jocular remarks is in itself, inspiring. As
companies and organisations have corporate social responsibilities, one key
goal comedians should learn to carry out is their social responsibilities,
which is to put smiles and laughter into people’s faces.
- by Godwin, JP (Comedian/Event Host.Ardent Publicist.Brand Specialist)
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