Every stand-up comic plying his or her trade in every seedy bar and off-brand comedy stages in Uganda dreams of one day playing the big rooms. And while Kenneth ‘Pablo’ Kimuli made the leap from the comedy circuit to National Theatre before younger Patrick Idringi ‘Salvado’, he still likes to get behind the mic, only now he can’t do so on the biggest platforms possible but the man from Ombokolo is.
Ugandans and Salvador himself are excited by the prospects of doing his thing in front of a record-breaking audience from December 4 to 10 : he made it through to the next round of the world’s funniest person competition.
It is now obvious Salvador and not Pablo on stage is enjoying a gift for connecting with audience members in a one-on-one way, and that skill serves him well in front of this mammoth online crowd that voted for him.
The father of one who was submitted to the competition by Namuwongo based journalist Sarah Nalule received massive online support to make the top20 cut that counts as a semi-final stage with the eventual winner bagging a trophy and a grand prize of $100,000 (about UGx330million) while the first and second runners-up will each take home $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.
The competition is an initiative by Laugh Factory to promote world peace through smiles and laughter.
Given the level of brokenness and hunger in Kampala this year, of course, Salvador has reached the point in his career where every coin matters and we hope he won’t be a ‘mukoopi’ and fly economy class to Helsinki, Finland for the semi- final round during the first week of December.
Congs Salvador.