Abdul Waris Umaru, popularly known as Comedian Waris has lamented that due to the Coronavirus pandemic, his career in stand up comedy is almost dying.
In an interview with Foster Romanus on the Late Nite show, he explained that most of the time the basis for stand up comedy is stage performance. But with the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, all stage performances have become virtual with little or no money.
“For now we are all trying to do bits of virtual performances. Before, there were a lot of programmes that were launched to help the entertainment industry develop.
One thing I think about is that we focus more on the music industry when it comes to performances and we don’t think about the comedians. As it stands now, I have had three virtual performances and it was cool, mostly on Instagram and youtube. But how to get the money back into your pocket is the problem because sometimes the pages are not monetized”.
He noted that the pandemic is also affecting other stage performers such as poets and magicians. He furthered that these stage performers should be given the same attention given to musicians.
On Monday, April 13th 2020, the Ministry of Communication organized a virtual music concert which was headlined by Shatta Wale and Kuami Eugene. This concert was an initiative to launch Ghana’s COVID-19 Tracker app. However, such a virtual concert for comedians has not been observed.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah