Television personality and satirist, Kwaku Sintim-Misa (KSM) has revealed his one man play ‘The Saga of the Returnee’ earned him the ‘King of Comedy’ title.
According to him, after staging the play, there was a review of the show, in Graphic Showbiz, that did not only praise the play, but the writer also called him ‘King of Comedy’ following his performance.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z Saturday, May 29, he said that “because it was a one man play and it was funny, the Ghanaian interpretation of it was that it was comedy. It wasn’t, A play has a beginning, a middle and an end.”
“It has characters, it has a climax, conflict and resolution and that’s what I did. But, because I did it as a one man performance they said it was stand up comedy.”
Following that performance in 1997, the King of Comedy became a title that was synonymous with KSM in Ghana.
Narrating how the play came to be, KSM said that when he moved to Ghana from the US to pursue his love for theatre and the arts his first few movies were hits, however, they did not give him the satisfaction he wanted.
After juggling lots of work to earn some income, KSM said his focus had shifted to radio leaving his love for the art.
“I was so comfortable with radio, ‘Talk Shop’ was the in thing,” he told George Quaye, host of the show.
However, one day, KSM said his wife challenged him to write a play when she saw he was settling with his job at the radio station.
She drew his attention to the possibility that he may have lost his creativity and everything he learnt as a theatre arts student, he added.
“I said no. So she sort of dared me to prove that I was still relevant and knew the game. So out of that dare and my annoyance to prove to her I sat down and I wrote a play called ‘The Saga of the Returnee’. Just to let her know that when I want to write I can write.”
To prove to his wife that he was very much still a theatre buff who is still knowledgeable when it comes to his field of study, KSM said he decided to produce the play.
KSM told George Quaye that “the first show didn’t do well at the British Council hall, I think then it seated about 200 or 300 people but I sold 13 tickets. But I had given out complimentary tickets so much on my (radio) show that if you are there at the British council it is a full house.”
The audience, he said, loved the show. Thus, when he announced that the show would return, the following week, the place was sold out.
Later, the then CEO of Metro TV, Talal Fattal, who loved the show, met him and suggested they change the venue to National Theatre.
KSM revealed that the businessman used his TV station to promote the show massively and it equally drew in lots of crowds.
“I have to give credit to Talal Fattal. So then I told my wife that ‘I still got it’.”
He stated that The Saga of the Returnee is one of the shows he performed the most, adding “I must have done it up to 12 times.”