Mamohlakola Letuka
LOCAL Comedian Skaftin has promised his fans fireworks at the Gags and Music scheduled for Wednesday at Cuban Linx.
He has urged Basotho to come in their big numbers to support local comedy, saying they will appreciate that Lesotho has talent and appreciate the need to support the sector.
The show will feature local artistes among others, Leotoana, Skafti and Masapo who was last year’s Savannas African comic nominee. Kagisure from Bloemfontein will also grace the show.
The comedy and music night shows are hosted twice a month, as one way of promoting local arts.
In most cases, the shows feature only local comedians and artistes, but next week they will for the first time feature a South African comedian.
The Gags and Music was pioneered by Skaftin, born Reitumetse Jeremiah Lebea.
The comedian and socialite came up with an innovation to combine music with comedy in March 2017, in order to create a unique show that would unite music and comedy lovers.
“It did not go down quite well when I started last year because I was living in Roma and therefore coordinating everything was a bit of a challenge. The shows were also for free, and that made operations a bit tight,” Skaftin said.
He then partnered with a friend, who brought artistes while he worked on bringing local comedians. Again, arrangements did not go according to plans as some artistes failed to pitch-up for the shows.
Skaftin got a lucky break when in September last year when he was approached by Cuban Linx management to pitch ideas on how to collaborate and grow the show.
“I went back to the drawing board and decided to recruit a team of comedians and photographers, which I was forced to cut to a smaller team for efficient operations,” Skaftin said.
However, although the team is currently small, Skaftin has plans to gradually grow it and establish an online channel to reach a wider audience.
The aim, he said, is to build a comedy industry and create a platform where comedians can make a living out of their work.
“We hope that arrangement can attract up and coming comedians and bring back those who had given up on their talent due to lack of a platform and opportunities to showcase what they can do.”
Skaftin also appealed to mediums such as Lesotho television to cover their shows and introduce a new flavor to their programming. “After a hard day’s work, it will be good for people to watch some comedy and have some good laughs to clear their head of all the stress accumulated throughout the day,” Skaftin said.
However, he said it would also be quite interesting if people could after work come and watch the comedy and music show.
“It would also grow the sector, if people can pay to support what we are doing. We are trying to create employment for the young people. I hope that the current sad reality that Basotho are not ready to pay for local talent will soon be a thing of the past. We would like people to come and watch us perform this coming Wednesday night to appreciate and promote local talent,” Skaftin said.
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