By Steven Odeke

At this moment of time, whoever manages to crack jokes on the current political atmosphere and leaves their audience rolling down the pews, without really dividing them, wins great marks from comedy lovers as witnessed last Thursday at Club Eltanja in Mbale.

The Mirinda Comedy crew had decked there on one of their Comedy Tour carried out around the country.

A pack of seven Kampala-based comedians were fetched to Mbale for the tour.

Two weeks back, some of these comedians had been in Jinja and Mbarara and thrilled audiences.

A glance at the Mbale line up that had Umar Gocher, Collins Emeka, Arnold/Albreezy, Snake/Zolo and Mendo Museveni Segujja, didn’t seem striking.

But knowing Segujja and maybe Gocher were on it, one had to trust the jokers to crack them up.

The night delayed to start with the organisers waiting for revelers to swell in numbers and by 10:30pm, seats had not filled up.

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Fille performing

Eventually people streamed in and did fill up the venue and then comedy started with comedian after comedian ushered in by the Gocher, the night’s host.

Emeka was the first to perform and his impersonation of Nigerians was a bit complicated for his audience to derive fun in.

Ugandans seem to have had enough of Nigerian impersonations and accents everywhere you go, unless done creatively well and freshly. But his performance was okay.

Then the duo of Arnold/Albreezy took to stage and, dwelt on a number of societal stereotypes infusing in sketch acts and all.

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Revellers having fun 

They tried too hard to impress and the crowds missed some of their jokes.

Actually, it is the duo of Snake and Zolo that took the same route as the aforesaid duo, doing sketch, but spent a bulk of their duration poking fun at the dating life of party-going people and a lot more subjects.

Mendo was the last to perform, of course impersonating President Museveni, fully clad in a yellow shirt, a hat and black pants just as the President had worn the day he picked his NRM nomination forms. The comedian also sauntered on the stage with a Museveni gait and started off from there.

This is something he has done for years now and earned him cult-status.


 

He joked about NRM political rivals like Kizza Besigye, Olara Otunnu, Mugisha Muntu and all but the audience, regardless of their political affiliations, just laughed about it.

His act was delivered perfectly well with his effortless charm. Beside the comedians, the night also had musical performances from Fille and Skywalker dance group.