By Brian Okoth
Growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s in a modest neighbourhood in Kenya's port city of Mombasa, movies played a major role in our entertainment – arguably more than they do to children today.
The American film industry had already taken off. For many Africans, the "fanciful" foreign setting was one that they could not easily relate to.
Then came the Nigerian movies that would later come to be known as the Nollywood movies, a modified name from America's Hollywood movies.
Nollywood movies mirrored the African setting, influenced our behaviour, introduced Nigeria's rich entertainment industry to us, and created idols we wished we would emulate.
Comedy: an art for the few
Whereas many of the movies were anchored on love, jealousy, and money themes, a few took the comedy route, and it is, presumably, for the obvious reason – that making people laugh is not an easy task.
A study published by the University of Florida says that a person pursuing acting in comedy must appeal to five tenets – reality, intensity, incongruity, tension, and technique – if they want to succeed in the art.
On reality, the study says "no matter how outlandish or absurd the situation is, a character should be grounded in the truth of human reality."
On intensity, the study says "the needs and wants of the comedic character must be more acute, more deeply felt, and more aggressively pursued than those of the dramatic character."
'Doing the opposite'
On incongruity, the study says that audiences, naturally, find humour in absurd behaviour. "The actor's job in a comedy should be to increase those moments of reversal by acting (doing) or behaving the opposite of what the audience expects of the character in a given situation," the study says.
On tension, the study states that "each joke is an act of building up tension and then releasing it." The study adds that a "pleasurable tension" is created in the audience when they want to know what will happen next.
And finally, on technique, the study says an actor must strike a balance between the inner-work that is required to make the character "true" or "real," and the outer-work of staying consciously involved in the execution of the comedy and the external circumstances of the play.
Few actors are able to meet the five comedy demands simultaneously, and make people laugh their lungs out.
Elite group
In Nigeria – and Africa by extension – the names that come to the fore are John Okafor, Nkem Owoh, Osita Iheme, Sam Loco Efe and Patience Ozokwor.
The elite group, definitely, has other names, but still, actors gifted in comedy remain countable.
John Okafor, alias Mr Ibu, was not "any other actor." For more than 40 years, he made people laugh. And his comedy was always fresh.
One day, he is acting dressed in women's clothes, and has poorly done make-up, including incompetently smeared red lipstick, and on another day, he is the slow-witted security guard, who has problems taking basic instructions in English language.
Excellence spirit
In other movies, he immeasurably loved food, while in one specific one, he had a problem understanding the phrase "wash and wear." What did he do upon seeking the advice of his son (Osita Iheme)? He washed the clothe and wore it publicly while still dripping of water.
Mr Ibu never repeated a joke in his subsequent movies, despite starring in at least 200 productions.
And it is for that excellence spirit that he won dozens of awards, including the Africa Movie Academy Award for the Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the Best Actor in Comedy at the African Comedy Awards.
On March 2, the veteran actor rested after months of ill health.
Death
The Actors Guild of Nigeria said on Saturday that the father of three died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos.
In November 2023, his family announced that the actor's leg had to be amputated to save his life.
On Sunday, Nigeria's Minister of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy Hannatu Musa Musawa termed Mr Ibu's death "very unfortunate and a sad one for us all in the entertainment industry."
Even as Africa mourns the 62-year-old, the world is grateful to have had him grace our screens, for he was not "any other actor."
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