IN the age of offence, it’s easy for comedians to put a foot wrong and then face a very public backlash. Unless you’re popular stand-up act, Tinaye Wayne, who simply doesn’t care.
In a candid tell-all interview with #enthuse while preparing for his departure to Kenya where he is performing at the “Everybody Can Gerrit!!! and Other Random Thoughts” comedy special at Lava Latte this week, the comedian defended controversial jokes and offending humour, saying that for him nothing is off-limits. In fact, “once we give comedy rules, then it gets boring”.
Here is the exchange:
#enthuse: What are the best strategies for memorizing involved monologues?
Tinaye Wayne: Practise. Practise. Practise. I say practise many times because if you practise something, you memorise it. You internalise it. You meditate on it. I take my script, I put it on paper and I memorise it.
#enthuse: That Kenya is a different space for you, how would you incorporate your viewers’ stories into your performances?
Tinaye Wayne: Of course, Kenya is a different environment, but I think it is going to be exciting. I’m just going to tell them my story. The best way of doing comedy anywhere in the world is telling them your own story. People want to know you, where you come from and how growing up in Zimbabwe is like.
#enthuse: How would you combat heckling?
Tinaye Wayne: I like the Chris Rock type of comedy that your material or jokes are tight and you don’t give people time to breathe, you don’t give them time to heckle you. But the school of comedy dictates that if someone heckles you, you heckle back, fast, instantly. We have so many techniques to deal with that. At times you just strike immediately after they finish talking. If they choose to go on, then the audience will know who is stupid and who is not. Sometimes it depends on the type of the heckler, but mostly, I don’t like to give people time to talk. I’m a punchline after punchline type of comedian. That is what I’m going to take with me to Kenya.
#enthuse: Have any of your comedic performances been harshly criticized?
Tinaye Wayne: Yes of course. If you are a comedian and you have never been criticised, then that begs the question if one is a good comedian. My sets have been criticised, my comedy has been criticised. But I put that on the back of my mind and I move on. You know there are no positive jokes, right? The fact that people have different opinions on things ensures that critics are ever-present.
#enthuse: Which contemporary phenomena should never be the subject of comedic performances?
Tinaye Wayne: Nothing! It depends on how you attack it, your angle of it. In comedy, you can talk about anything, as long as it is funny. Once we give comedy rules, then it gets boring. Let’s comedians be comedians, let musicians be musicians. Creators should be allowed to create without fixed parameters.
#enthuse: What do you promise your prospect audience, and will the event be streaming live so that your Zimbabwean fans can get to watch too?
Tinaye Wayne: I promise my best, as always. I have been working hard on this. You know, I have been doing this for like close to four years now. I promise the audience the best of me. They should look up to it and I’m looking forward to it. The show will not be live-streamed but it will be recorded, along with other content and published online for my amaZimbabwean audience to watch what will transpire in Kenya. It’s going to be an awesome event; it’s organised by Moto Republik. We will do a creative tour, checking out some of the political satirists in Kenya. We will also network with young and other well-established comedians. It’s not really about comedy; it’s a creative exchange programme. I’m so honoured to be part of it. It’s about me bringing back home lessons from Kenyan creatives to impact my fellow creatives in Zim.
