2 Brown Sugars is a MICF show by a couple of blokes who’ve been keenly observing the rest of us and the dumb things we say to brown people. Kenyan-born Vincent Tshaka has been here five years now and tells Beat how he realised he could be as funny, if not funnier, than many of the comics he was watching on TV. “I watched Stand Up Australia every second week and thought, ‘I’m funnier than that’.” We’re not naming names, but the result of seeing rubbish comedy on TV meant Tshaka was compelled to give stand-up a go himself, and he may well hold the title of Australia’s only Zulu stand-up. He found he wasn’t so well-received in his home country, after being persuaded to perform an impromptu show at a nightclub on a visit home to Kenya. “The setting was not a proper comedy setting,” he remembers. “People hadn’t come to the club to watch comedy. They were dancing. My friend interrupted and said there was this guy from Australia, he’s a comedian and a Kenyan. I got on stage, but a few of the jokes didn’t go down too well. I was booed off the stage – they told me to go back to Australia!” This sounds like a hilariously singular and somewhat surreal experience, a bizarre reversal of something he may well have encountered here not all that long ago.
Tshaka says he originally wanted to get into music, but there was no money in it. Now, he and Kurly have pooled resources to put together 2 Brown Sugars, which they’re hoping to take to Edinburgh. “We’ve been talking to one of the producers,” he says. “If everything goes well, we’ll get there.”
How did Tshaka and Kurly (Bali-born Wayan Keenan) come to be doing a show together? “I’ve been thinking about colour for a while,” he says. “I sat down and decided to do a show. For two non-Australian comedians, two people not born here, it’s about our view of Australia, how we look at Aussies. Not understanding Australian culture got me into comedy.” So what does he joke about? “It’s mostly about racism, about being different. Comparing the way I was brought up with how I’m bringing up my kids here, [and] things that happen to me.” Being asked if he’s a runner as soon as someone hears he’s from Kenya, for example. Has he had to deal with any hecklers here? “Not really. I haven’t been heckled so far during a show. I was talking to Dave Callan and he told me that if anyone does heckle, you just ask them to repeat what they said. Asking them to repeat it means you could take it off on another tangent and it could end up contributing to the show. People look at me and expect just black jokes but I do more than that.” What does Tshaka think makes him funny? “I leave that to the audience. Let the audience decide. I just go up there and try to make them laugh.”
He and Kurly are splitting the show, doing a set each, but there’s some interaction between them on stage. “Some of our stories we can share,” Tshaka says. “We want to try and show that we do have things in common.” Interestingly, there are some cultural connections between Africa and Bali that you wouldn’t have expected. “There are a few Swahili words you hear in Bali,” says Tshaka. “There’s a little bit of African heritage in Bali, you meet Afronesians.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
Venue: The Downstairs Lounge at The Grand Mercure, 195 Swanston St, CBD
Dates: April 7 – 19 (except Monday)
Time: 7.45pm
Tickets: $16 – $20
