In the past couple of weeks, the battle lines between “The Krackers” and “Laftaz Comedy Group” have been re-drawn, only this time they are off the social network, and in the field of play.
At an interview on one of the Breakfast TV shows on local television last Tuesday, Patrick Idringi, popularly known as “Salvado Sorenza”, found some time to hit out at ex-Crackers members that broke away to form Laftaz Comedy Group & Lounge, with implications that he was bigger, better and more mature than his now nemeses. Now this definitely did not go down well with the opposite camp as at that evening’s show at Centenary Park, Arthur D’Vaccine, MC on the night and part of the camp, stated repeatedly, “We are, by far, the best comedy out-fit in the country”. He also went ahead to state that when the Goodlyfe duo of Radio & Weasel left Chameleone’s Leone Island, he didn’t follow them up to the extent of hating on them like some people are doing to the Laftaz camp.
In a related development, comedy lovers will know that there has always been a monthly comedy event at Theater La Bonita, dubbed “Comedy Explosion”, featuring the best Luganda comics in the stand-up comedy industry, a night run by Ssebakigye Emmanuel, subscribed to the Laftaz Comedy Group currently. If you didn’t know, now you do, lol.
In a recent interview, Prince Ehmah, Director Laftaz Comedy Group, with one of the leading Ugandan Entertainment radio shows, “The Cruize: Weekend Edition” on Magic100FM, one that I host, stated that Salvado, who runs the Krackers’ Mic Check Comedy show, that occurs at the same venue(Theatre La Bonita) weekly, approached the facility management and suggested the Comedy Explosion be moved from the venue or else he resorts to also having “Mic Check” run once a month since, according to Prince Ehmah, Salvado felt Ssebakigye’s night performed much better than the Krackers’ weekly nights combined.
He further intimated that an agreement was reached by the management, after presentations made by Emmanuel Ssebakigye and Salvado, that the Comedy Explosion would no longer occur at the theatre, and that Salvado would take it up, resulting in the “Kings of Comedy” show, which debuted late last month, and featured, in addition to the Krackers, comics such as Pablo, Kato Lubwama & Abbey Mukiibi.
With the Laftaz Comedy Group owning their own venue now, it has been reliably reported that the “Comedy Explosion” will now be moved to Laftaz Comedy Lounge and will debut this month, 26th July 2013.
With all this going on, one would feel it is a positive aspect occurring to Ugandan Comedy, particularly Stand-Up Comedy, since it now gets competitive, with different factions getting creative about how they can beat competition, and probably less repeated jokes.
A lot shall be pointed out on what Tom, Dick, or Harry thinks about the industry, but one thing shall be agreed upon, the stand-up comedy industry has finally arrived, and it’s definitely growing and not stagnated, it can only go up.