Sex sells, and it did for the line-up of comedians at the Africa Laughs comedy show on Friday night as their jokes revolved around the three letter word.
The annual show, now in its second season brings several African comedians on one stage and perhaps organisers should have warned NTV that broadcast part of the show that was held at the Imperial Royale Hotel that it was X-rated.
The host of the night was Nigerian comedian Basket Mouth and he at one time had to ask for the live coverage to be turned off for the sake of parents who were watching the show at home with their children. He then went on to give men tips on how to bed a woman by pretending like you don’t want to. He was so graphic in description, talking about things like how a bra should be taken off in two seconds, or the woman might change her mind, sending the audience into bouts of laughter.
Basket Mouth also had the joke about women and “that time of the month.” “You get home at 4am and she says she is in her periods yet you can’t find someone else at that time.” He told the guys to always pick up a quarrel with their girls earlier in the day as an excuse to ask “if it’s that time of the month.” “If she says no, you know its going to be a good night.”
Africa Laughs is the brain child of Salvado and we thought he was going to deliver clean jokes because he said his father was in the house but we were wrong. “I hate talking about sex jokes when my father is in the audience, I am not comfortable. Last time I said a sex joke, he turned to my mother and asked, why haven’t we tried that style before,” Salvado said.
He also joked about his Ombokolo people, deep down in his West Nile village watching a blue movie.
Salvado’s partner in crime Alex Muhangi didn’t talk sex but his jokes were as dirty as they get – for him it was about an ATM toilet giving prompts in his native Rukiga.
Muhangi’s village mate from Kabale, Anne Kansiime, decided to use her schoolgirl character and she came on stage wearing a school uniform, but we were not spared the dirty jokes either. She narrated how her mathematics teacher tasked her to count up to 33. After using up the fingers, toes, ears, eyes, nostrils, mouth, chin and breasts, she was at 31. “We women can’t count any further but men can count 32 and 33 (referring to the balls), and even have something extra to count.”
Eddie Kadi the London based Congolese comedian told the story of a couple that was at a hotel and the man found a strand of hair in his soup. The manager apologised and even asked them not to pay their bill. The couple moved to the hotel room to have sex and they didn’t close the window so the manager happened to see them in the act. The manager later confronted the man .. “You complained about one strand of hair in the restaurant and you have been swallowing that woman’s hair in the name of kissing.”
Daliso Kimbonda from Malawi was the most intelligent comedian on the line-up. The kind of guy whose jokes you get in the morning. He had political jokes but he also couldn’t do without sex jokes. “There are reasons why short men like me shouldn’t date tall women, there are some positions that don’t favour us, like 69.” We guess you are still figuring out the joke, but you will get it.
The funniest comedian of the night was Kenya’s Eric Omondi and he didn’t have to rely on sex jokes but he had to use women to demonstrate some of his jokes, like reggae music lovers who forget about their women when reggae is played as they are drowned in the message.