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Mbulelo Mpofu, [email protected]

IT is festival season in Matabeleland and Bulawayo province as a trifecta of festivities are ruling the roost for five straight days with the European Film Festival Zimbabwe (EuroFilmFestZW), Kwantuthu Comedy Festival and the Phenomenal Festival of Light illuminating the scene from Wednesday to Sunday.

Kwantuthu Comedy Festival, in its second year just got bigger and better, especially with the financial help from Culture Fund through its CreativeACTIONs initiative to help creative minds thrive in their respective sectors. The festival got underway on Wednesday night with a plethora of theatric and comic festivities lined up. It aims to spotlight local talent and provide a platform for emerging comedians to showcase their skills.

The comedy fest burst into life through a “Theatre Night” which was hosted by comedian Tapiwa Harinangoni. It featured nascent comic teenager Arthur Chikanga, and students from Christian Brothers College and Dominican Convent High School who left the audience in stitches.

To kickstart the show, Chikanga, stood up and left the crowd screaming for more with a short, but rib-cracking stand-up comedy set, setting the tone for what would be a cracking night of unbridled laughter, with the audience echoing the festival’s slogan, “Kwantuthu Comedy Festival. It’s on!”

The Dominican Convent High School Drama Club presented a play titled, “The Translator” where diverse dignitaries converge in Zimbabwe for a business conference where each of them needs a translator to the English language with hilarious results. Not only were the translations wrong, they were notoriously hilarious and meant that the translator had to be fired and one of the dignitaries hired for the “hot seat”, but fluffed their lines as well.

Christian Brothers College (CBC) were not to be outdone, staging a play of comic proportions that showed the dire consequences of drunk piloting when a plane from Harare to Victoria Falls ferrying influential passengers in the form of X and Tesla owner, Elon Musk. The pilot drinks a lot of whiskey and loses control of the plane when turbulence hits and everyone has to jump out of the plane in parachutes and, amazingly, everyone survives and plays hunger games, fishing to no avail.

The Bulawayo comedy space is in safe hands if what students from CBC, Dominican Convent High School drama club, and Charleston Trust Primary School showcased is anything to go by. Such theatrics owed to them were under the tutelage of veteran theatre experts Charmaine Mudau, Dumisani Manyathela, and Raisedon Baya.

Today, there was a verbal sparring session moderated by MaForty at the Bulawayo Theatre where Bulawayo was pitted against Harare. The session was dubbed “Bulawayo vs Harare Comedy Show” where Bulawayo was represented by Mbongeni “BrandXn” Masuku, Mbongeni Ignatius, and, D’ Juni while in Harare’s corner was Ace, Tinashe ThisIsIt, and Tinoe.

Comedy lovers will also enjoy short film screenings from the Dominican Convent High School Drama and Media Club students.

Kwantuthu Comedy Festival will sign off through a Roast of Zimbabwe where Babongile Skhonjwa will be the roast master, when Botswana’s pair, Ndiye Tampa, and Thapelo Malani (visually-impaired), Joseph Sebeho (South Africa), Kayumba Nathan Simunhweze (Zambia), and Tshepo Mpiti (Lesotho) will feel the heat.

– @MbuleloMpofu