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Monday, February 20, 2012

Nollywood's dubious comedy


Shunning Comedy of Dubious Pedigree
Movie pundits do not need Research & Marketing Services Limited, RMS, or any other marketing research company to impress on them that locally produced comedy films (home videos) do not rate well among discerning lovers of comedy in the country.
Nkem Owoh

In no small measure, this has made such Nigerians opt more and more for foreign productions. And the cache of Hollywood (American) and Bollywood (Indian) films, up for sale by local movie retailers reinforces the fact that these category of people are not in the minority.

More pitiable is the fact that the sales of locally produced comic flicks, described by movie marketer, Chimezie Anadu (of O’King Productions), Nollywood’s cash cow, d
o not compare with that of foreign comic flicks in the local market.




A recent visit to the movie section of Alaba International Market, the distribution hub of movies in the country attests to this. Foreign films, especially comedies, which originate from Hollywood, dominate the market.    

Flicks featuring foreign comedians namely Chris Rock, Benie Man, Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey (of Ace Ventura fame), among others, remain top choice.

Those featuring homegrown comic acts such as the Nkem Owohs (of Osuofia in London fame) and the Babatunde Omidinas (Baba Suwe), do not enjoy the same niche. This could be attributed in part to the mediocre scripts often made into movies by the shrewd merchant movie producers that control the nation’s motion picture industry

Also, instances abound where homegrown thespians have not done more than betray themselves as mere artisans that could be used by any emergency contractor (merchant producer) in the business of movie making.

With good grace, Nkem Owoh, who is hyped as the highest paid comic actor in Nigeria, has interpreted a slew of poorly scripted movies, which often portrays him as a poor imitation of what a professional comedian should be.

In the same way, Babatunde Omidina a.k.a Baba Suwe, publicized as ‘the best’ comic actor of the Yoruba movie genre, falls into this category. He will say or do anything in the name of comedy. Not schooled in the theoretical dynamics of acting through formal education, he is notorious for stretching verbal comedy to boring point.

What movie practitioners think
Bayo Bankole, ex-Boy Alinco, of the popular Papa Ajasco series, describes the way Baba Suwe, a comic actor is cast in Yoruba movies as pathetic.

“Yoruba films are pathetic, especially the attempt to do comedy. Some producers cannot do comedy without Baba Suwe and they erroneously bring him into serious matters, using him as an interjection to create comic relief, even in tragic scripts.”
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Comedy, according to Bankole, should be part of the flow of a film. Even in tragic plays, he believes we can have comic relief, which is not just creating the role, but as a part and parcel of the tragedy, part of the flow.

Remi Ohajianya, Lagos Chapter chairman, Actor Guild of Nigeria, says local productions generally do not measure up. According to him, casting, costuming and scripting, among other variables make a total comedy package, not just a star comedian.

“In that sense, we have actually not been able to do comic films in Nigeria. When you see a comic film, it is the storyline, costumes and characters that will throw you off balance. Not just an aspect of these variables” Ohajianya informs.

Rising in defense of local filmmakers, Mandela Ezeh, of Movie Production Managers of Nigeria, asks rhetorically, when did we start making comedy films? As far as he is concerned, Nigerians just started such and they are not doing badly. General problems’ facing the industry, according to Ezeh, is what affects the comedy genre.

Once upon a theatre of farce
Everything about today’s comic films bears semblance to the low comedy of Moses Olaiya’s Alawada Group, which made waves in the 1960s, until its eclipse in the 1980s. Quite like present day comic flicks, every thing revolves around Olaiya, the star comedian.

In spite of that however, Olaiya’s Alawada Group fared better than its contemporary successors (Osuofia, Baba Suwe and co) in the eyes of the masses, elites and a cross section of theatre scholars such as renowned playwright and theory oriented theatre scholar, Olu Obafemi.

Obafemi holds Olaiya to be the most popular and most commercially viable professional theatre practitioner in Nigeria of his time.  

On the other side, were those that adjudged Olaiya’s ability to evoke mirth and provide popular entertainment through the farcical as vulgar and trivial. Their contention, was that, Olaiya’s comedy is tastelessly showy, clownish and socially irrelevant. 

They preferred Village Headmaster, Hotel de Jordan and New Masquerade, among other television comedies of the years of yore. Truly so, these television productions of comic hue, remain points of reference and efforts have made at different points in time to bring them back on air for the entertainment of Nigerians.

Dearth of good comic films may near total; but the same could be said about television, where, contemporary productions such as the Papa Ajasco series and Fuji House of Commotion by Wale Adenuga and Amaka Igwe respectively, are flying the flag high as far as sitcoms are concerned.

Comic flicks in the country seem not to have evolved beyond Moses Olaiya’s low comedy, in spite of positive development recorded in the television comedy scene, where Papa Ajasco and Fuji House of Commotion are reasonable substitutes for Village Headmaster, Hotel de Jordan and New Masquerade, and other television comedies of the years of yore.   

Way forward
Seasoned theatre practitioner and academic, Tunde Adeyemo, who is director of studies at the Pencils Television and Film Institute, PEFTI, says beyond comedy, there is need for a lot of improvement as far as local productions goes.

According to him, you find practitioners writing scripts on sets. “We do not have scripts that are properly written for a purpose and are equally well researched. Here in Nigeria, when you talk of comedy, people write scripts around a natural comedian.

“Comedy has to do with language. Is it comedy of error or buffoonery? Name it. You need to think seriously about the factors to be employed in creating it. Some people are comical in nature and even in appearance.
“If you look at Baba Suwe for instance, you could still pick a few things. But there is what we call monotony in his act and he borders on vulgarity, which may not be good for some moral applications.”    
Baba Suwe
For Adeyemo however, the way forward lies in the scriptwriter creating a comic role before an actor picks it up for interpretation within that context. He regards the scriptwriter as a creative artiste, with the gift of comic invention, while the actor is the interpretative artiste, who works with the director to actualize his/her role.

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