Okello says he is glad that many comedians are earning big from comedy, which is encouraging budding comedians. PHOTO/ courtesy
Hillary Okello is a medical doctor. He is also a comedian who will be staging his second comedy show, Funny on Purpose, this evening at Theatre Labonita.
Where did the comedy dream start from?
While in my O-Level at Jinja College, I was very fascinated by the comedians I saw on TV such as Salvado, Alex Muhangi, Emma Napoleon and we had these handful of students who were part of what they called the Current Affairs Club. Basically what they did was read news on Friday mornings at the general assembly. I always looked forward to Friday mornings just to watch them read the news because it was fun and entertaining. As a result, I attended one of their meetings and asked to join, which at first they were skeptical about but eventually gave me a shot. I was the one who wrote jokes about events of the past week. For example if a football game happened or there was a prom party, I would find jokes in that regard and perform them on Friday during assembly.
When I left Jinja College and joined Our Lady of Good Counsel, Gayaza for my A-Level, I introduced the same thing and got a positive reception. I also used to MC at most school events and I started to perform stand-up comedy at school seminars. What is interesting is that when I look back at my joke writing skills back then compared to where I am now, I feel like whatever I did was not even that funny, but for some reason people enjoyed them.
Clearly the dream was there. So did you get any training to polish your skills?
READ FULL INTERVIEW… Hillary Okello: Telling stories just for laughs
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