The Sunday Mail
Takudzwa Chihambakwe
Leisure Correspondent
AWARD-WINNING comedian Carl Joshua Ncube has started the year with a bang, landing deals that will see his brand grow bigger and reaching out to a more diverse audience. In January this year, Carl revealed he would be part of Comedy Central Africa’s animation team for “My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians”. He joined the team as a voice talent and helped generate some Zimbabwe-centric storylines and characters to add to the already whacky ones in the show.
This was on the back of a successful 2015 that saw him perform at more than 10 international comedy festivals. Carl performed at Africa Laughs Uganda, Gotham Comedy Club in New York (US), Parkers Comedy Club South Africa, Free Your Mind Namibia, Nite of a Thousand Laughs Nigeria, Kenya Uganda and the inaugural edition of the Comedy Central Africa International Comedy Festival, among others.
Just last week, Carl was rocking comedy lovers in Cote d’Ivoire where he staged his set in French, yes – he speaks a little French. “Ivory Coast was amazing, a lot of opportunities have opened up as a result of this risk I took and am so grateful,” said an elated Carl last week.
He added: “I also got to interact with many French comedians from other Francophone countries and they were so happy with my performance. My performance was prepared in five parts. Firstly, I wanted to show that I did learn some French at school so I came out and confidently introduced myself and explained that I could not speak French fluently. The second part is that I then requested a translator and I then used the translator to illustrate random French words and phrases I knew in a hilarious ‘Lost in translation set’.
“The third part was to perform one of my jokes with the translator in French, for those that know the Jamie Oliver cooking joke I do. The fourth part was to perform a joke in English and have it translated into French for the audience. The fifth part was a joke said entirely in English aided with lots of action on the stage that was so complex to translate that the audience loved the reaction of the translator to my joke.”
However, despite the success he enjoys, many of his critics including some fellow local comics have argued that he is not the funniest comedian around and Carl agrees.
“Indeed I am not the funniest comedian in town but one factor I have that the rest of the comedians don’t have is the business element of doing things. I don’t wait for opportunities to come my way, I go out there and create them myself.
“The sad reality is that a number of many local comedians are sitting around waiting for a promoter to come to them, but that will never happen at all. Most of my early international gigs were all self-funded and people used to laugh at me saying what I was doing would never bear fruit but look at me now.
“I have shared the secrets of my success with most of the local comedians but none of them seem interested in what I say. Maybe it’s because I am the youngest among most of them – career wise – I don’t know.
“Contrary to popular belief, I was not there before the likes of Q The Boss, Simba The Comic King, Doc Vikela, among many others, no. I only came way after them and by the grace of God I have managed to pioneer a different way of doing things, hence I stand out from the rest but they were there earlier than me.” When asked what the major challenges for the local comedians are, Ncube said, “I would not say there is a challenge but people need to understand a few things about stand-up comedy. Firstly, it is a myth that recording skits is lucrative as people think it is especially if the content is predominantly in Shona.
“You have to remember that if you are going to use the formula that Anne Kansiime used to grow her brand, it has to be in a language understood by not only Zimbabweans but Africa as well. Generally, Zimbabweans who consume that kind of content do not usually pay for it nor do they support the so called comedians in these videos that they claim to love. Instead, a false impression of popularity occurs without a financially sustainable base hence they are popular today and gone when the next fad comes on the market.”
Ncube also spoke on the new partnership he has struck with Rainbow Towers, which will see the establishment of Harare’s first comedy club. “Soon we will be launching a comedy programme for Rainbow Towers, which should see comedy activities happening every day of the week in their Hungwe Bar.”
