Hiram Mungai’ s( Ondiek Nyuka-Kwota) phone rings while we queue for lunch at the canteen and he responds in his Kikuyu dialect. A lady standing next to him looks perplexed, as if she did not expect him to speak Kikuyu, since his character mimics a Luo accent.
“ You are beautiful,” Peter Sankale( Olexander Josphat) tells the astonished woman to her further shock at his crisp grasp of the Queen’ s language.
At our lunch table, Peter Sankale gives the choirmaster’ s gesture and in no time, the other actors join him in a wellharmonised melody – which turns out to be a prayer before the meal. The attention we get at the canteen heightens. It is something they are used to – maybe enjoy.
“ We are often associated with our screen characters. But that is not the case, except for Makokha who is just as stupid in life,” Sankale teases his co-actor.
We all laugh.
If you grew up in the 1990s and watched KBC’ s Vioja Mahamakani, Ondiek Nyuka Kwoka, Alphonse Makacha dot Makokha and Olexander Josphat are three names that graced our living rooms. Vioja Mahakamani on
KBC was a must watch.
The Vioja Mahakamani team left KBC after being told that they were“ too old” and the show needed new and younger faces, quitting the show in solidarity as a family.
The cast credited their success as actors to hard work and passion, saying that this was key in making them household names and icons in the industry.
In Vioja Mahakamani, they explained that the TV show had already created a mark in the entertainment industry.
After quitting the show, the cast created another comedy show dubbed Jungu Kuu, which airs on K24.
Later, Ondiek Nyuka Kwoka, Alphonse Makacha dot Makokha and Olexander Josphat teamed up for KTN’ s Daktari, a comedy show about the day-to day happenings at a fictional hospital called Kwota Hospital, owned by Dr
Ondiek Nyuka-Kwota.
At the hospital, Olexander Josphat plays the comical security guard, a role he is synonymous with, while Alphose Makacha dot Makokha( Mathias Keya) plays the hospital cook. Kokoto Lijodi( Lawrence Gwaka), another actor from the nostalgic KBC days, features in the show as a taxi driver who drops patients at the hospital.
“ Makokha should stop puffing whatever he takes,” Peter Sankale says of Makokha’ s ecstatic performance as he leaves the set.
The trio bagged a Kalasha Award in December 2017 for the best comedy of the year with their Maisha Magic show, Hullabaloo Estate. Hullabaloo centres on the lives of the fictional characters played by the trio in their fictional neighbourhood.
“ We have remained relevant because we tell Kenyan stories. We tackle issues that people go through. We do not try to force topics on the audience. They see themselves in our shows. We give them what they can relate with,” says Ondiek Nyuka-Kwota.
On how comedy has evolved since 1980s and 1990s, Ondiek Nyuka- Kwota says that then there was no money in TV and film and therefore, most artistes had the right motivation
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