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five-member group of young stand-up comedians trading as Simuka Comedy.
Nurtured by the warm cultural environs of the Book Cafe’s Open Mic Programme, Simuka Comedy can rightly be said to have broken through the wall of hesitancy to boldly acquire the necessary acceptance in the national theatre movement.

The five-member group of stand-up comedians comprising Simba The Comic King; Michael K; Doc Vikela; Toropito and Uncle Sam may seem very much like a group on nonentities to regular patrons of theatre venues. These include Theatre in the Park and the Reps Theatre in Harare; Amakhosi Theatre and Bulawayo Theatre in Bulawayo and other conventional theatre venues in Masvingo, Kadoma and Mutare.
Indeed, many theatre lovers who have not graced the Book Cafe’s Open Mic evenings as well as those who did not have the opportunity to patronise Edgar Langeveldt’s “Zimbabwe Comedy Festival”

that was supported by the Culture Fund and which featured members of Simuka Comedy may be very sceptical of the validity of the claim, by this group, that it has sculpted a vibrant stand-up comedy show with such a rich diversity of Zimbabwean perspectives.
The group also says it has the potential to galvanise Zimbabwe’s theatre industry and to grow huge, appreciate and sustain theatre audiences. Simba, the comic king who is the spokesperson of

Simuka Comedy, indicated recently that their act is set on the comic stage whose comic gunpowder was sprinkled all over our theatre landscape by Edgar Langeveldt – the father of Zimbabwean stand-up comedy – who mentored the group through their participation in his “Zimbabwe Comedy Festival”.
That gunpowder has, however, remained inert until recently when it was torched by Carl Joshua Ncube whose sparks of “The Biggest Zimbabwean Stand-up Comedian in the World” are now all over the comic stage of the world but are yet to ignite the local theatre environment.

Simuka Comedy is therefore set to ignite this comic gunpowder and to spread a comic fire that will not only warm Zimbabwe’s theatre hearts but will ensure that this genre of theatre becomes the backbone of Zimbabwean theatre.
Those who would like to be consumed by the comic fire as well as to smell the comic gunpowder have been invited to “The Official Zimbabwean Stand-Up Comedy Night” at the Book Cafe’s The Mannenberg tonight.

The two-hour comic show which kicks off at 8pm will also entice other stand-up comedians who have not yet gathered the courage to stand up in public and make others laugh with an opportunity to grab the Open Mic Comedy Slot that will be provided on the programme.
This show which has been promoted as “Hilariously Ugly September” hopes to welcome on the laughter stage a stand-up comedian known as Carlos.
In its promo, Simuka Comedy highlights Doc Vikela as a comic with “painfully uncensored humour” that is delivered in a visually angry style.

In previous acts he has spoken of “everything from the London riots” to the music star Roki and his brand of life and music, in a manner that “amused, shocked, flabbergasted the audience”.
Simba The Comic King is presented as a comic who “unleashes some unroyal humour” using such characters as “a murderous prostitute from Malawi”, Oprah, Mai Chisamba, Barack Obama and Supa Mandiwanzira.

In the last show in August the “King of Comedy” wittingly delivered punchline after punchline and his subjects could not help but respond with laughter and rounds of applause”.
On the other hand, Uncle Sam – who was recently welcomed to the group – has been presented as a “comical genius” who appears as a “chubby gentleman dressed in a suit”.
No one would expect to deliver the “classic church hymns and nursery rhymes” and to make his audience “laugh like kids”.

This comedian is credited with the unique and yet “uncanny ability to engage the audience”.
Then on tonight’s line-up, a master of disguise known as Toropito – the news bulletin reader who in the August show appeared on the stage as a pregnant woman who gave “the audience some vernacular rib crackers”.

The comic, who is promoted as very unpredictable in terms of comic materials, has also been described by fellow comedians as “the hardest act to perform after”.
His comic act demonstrates clearly that the strategy of embracing comedy in indigenous languages is a very viable approach towards expanding the base of the theatre audience in Zimbabwe.
The spokesperson of Simuka Comedy has indicated that although in each show, each comedian is given a 30-minute laughter slot, each one of them has more than five hours of performance material.

He stressed that it is each comedian’s aspiration to mount solid one-man shows for the world market.
It is also the aim of the group to produce DVDs of their materials, which are often required by organisers of international stand-up comedy festivals.
All the members of Simuka Comedy have adopted strategies of writing comic materials for a wide variety of situations.

The members are therefore available for hire to entertain audiences at weddings, birthday parties and corporate functions, conference seminars and workshops where the participants may require moments of stress reduction and relaxation through laughter generated by clean jokes.

The group also offers itself to communities, organisations and individuals who may need workshops on writing and delivering stand-up comedy.
Equally significant is the invitation by the comics to masters of humour who would write appropriate comic materials for them.

Simuka Comedy has not only credited Edgar Langeveldt for mentoring each and every one of them and for giving them the courage to mount the laughter revolution.
The group is also very grateful to Carl Joshua Ncube, who not only provided them with solid criticism of their performances and material but was helpful in designing the group’s logo, registering its domain and developing the site Simuka Comedy.

It is hoped that the revolution begun by these “comical heroes of Zimbabwean theatre” will take them to such international events just for Laughs in Montreal, Canada; Hong Kong International Comedy Festival; the United States of America Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen; the Melbourne International Comedy; the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as well as to become one of the big comedy acts of the Harare International Festival of Arts and all the local arts festivals.

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