So Mr Jokes is world phenomenon?

Fellow Republicans,

I caught local comedian Mr. Jokes on my grainy 21 inch TV and laughed my lungs out — well, not at his stale jokes, but his missing front tooth!

The reason I watched five more minutes is the buggered TV requires several antenna adjustments and slaps on its sides to heed instruction to migrate from one channel to the other.

Mr Jokes’ lines were tired and flat and I was utterly surprised at how a lied to audience has loved his exhausted humour.

Yet this other lady in the audience was so moved with proceedings she rolled her eyes with emotion, ceaselessly wiping ‘tears of joy!’ from the corners of her eyes.

I bet she just wanted her own share of time on camera.

Like others in the audience, she was only showing gratitude at being granted free entry to the studio shoot, and that is not uncommon in Malawi.

We are allergic to truth sometimes. We are a nation of pretenders.

Without a second look at what is thrown our way, we jump at anything. We hate criticism — both giving and receiving it!

Compromise rules many circles and artists such as Mr. Jokes are only ‘doing their part’ in clowning for a living.

All across arts, many things are darting down the wrong road. In many hawkers that litter our townships, rushed and crudely made films, comedy and music DVDs sell at as low as K250. One finds the price a true reflection of the quality and content.

My big problem, however, is that such unripe stuff is even permeating boundaries and finding its way to the world via YouTube. Just Google ‘Mr Jokes’ and see what the world has on Malawian comedy. The productions, alas! It is the same with music.

It’s a poorly calculated move. It’s like approaching art judges worldwide with evidence on how bad we are.

Beloved Republicans, get organised and use YouTube to scale heights, and not to advertise our lack of refinement.