Let me try to gaslight you for a minute here. If you have not jumped into the stand-up bandwagon, then you missed out big time last weekend. David Macharia and the people who agreed to do this show happened at Nairobi Laugh Bar.
Ty Ngachira’s Millennial in Denial recording also took place at Braeburn Gitanga Theatre. Maina Munene’s African Dream Tour took place at the Alliance Française Nairobi.
All the shows featured some of the best of the best in African stand-up.
Is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) creeping in yet? If it has, I have some good news for you. But before we get to that, let’s talk about Maina Munene’s The African Dream Tour that came to a close at the Alliance Française after going through Kisumu, Eldoret, Mombasa, and Lamu.
I settled into the Wangari Maathai Theatre and watched the room fill. The crowd was young and calm. This was not a club crowd. No one was visibly drinking, the audience knew exactly why they were there.
They listen. They think. They laugh at the cue of the comedian, not the cue of whatever is running in their system. And because of that I expected the comedians to have a difficult time.
Justine Wanda (MC)
She came in hot, maybe a touch too excited, but she found her footing quickly. Her energy matched the room. Because the theme was African dream, set kept coming back to it. She shared bits on protest and River Road.
She had routines on dating, being a comedian full-time, and racially awkward moments. A few bits felt familiar to me, but to this crowd they landed.
The crowd was having a great time. As MC, she did what mattered most, but forgot small, but much more important things like making the audience fully understand what was going on and setting the house rules properly.
Otherwise, she did a good job introducing the guests and keeping the gaps between sets tight.
Openers
Jack Alita
If you have ever seen a comedian perform stand-up in a matatu on social media, you probably saw Jack. He leaned into everyday Nairobi life and tied it to the theme. He did a good matatu bit, whistling at problems as Africans.
Then went into a routine about moving to a new place and insecurity in his home area. He turned those small discomforts into clear setups with neat payoffs. He used callbacks well.
The material was familiar, but the crowd responded. The thing that stayed on my mind as he left the stage was his clean structure, good story telling and punchlines.
Marcus Douglas
Marcus Douglas stands out the moment he walks on stage. His height and accent become comedic tools. He uses them to shape his timing and to slow the beat when it helps settle in with the audience.
His set felt personal, starting with name and legacy bit, bedroom vs height bits, and a bargaining routine. He returned to the Africa theme with material on race, white people in Africa, and absurd bits about cannibalism that had the crowd going.
A Ugandan newspaper joke near the end landed unevenly, but his sense of timing is strong. He knows when to linger on a pause so the audience can build its expectation. Then he drops the punchline, and the laugh follows.
Main act
Maina Munene
This was his show. He owned the stage from the first step, utilising the stage to reach everyone. He began by making fun of his tour. Then he went personal by making the audience understand the theme and why it was important.
He rooted the set in Laikipia, in being a bandit in a small town, in growing up around NGOs and flowers and the strange economy of donor money.
He moved into the Nairobi experience with vivid routines about Mukuru kwa Jenga, thin walls, and the strange perks and hazards of slum life.
He threaded class commentary through those bits and hit a clear note about being broke while dreaming of getting paid in dollars.Throughout the set, he kept looping back to the institutions that backed the tour.
French embassy and Alliance Française callbacks showed up enough to be a running gag without feeling like forced sponsorship. He shifted gears midway and took us on a tour of Africa.
Flying bits, Kampala detours and a tricky riff on Zimbabwe all fed into a larger routine about politics. He teased presidents and public figures, naming names while steering the material away from bitterness and into sharp observation.
Maina folded family history into the set. He told stories about a grandfather wounded by the Mau Mau struggle and turned it into a meditation on legacy and anger. The routine that connected race, mental health, and how government institutions respond to both felt like the set’s quiet centre.
Conclusion
This was a compact, laid-back experience that, even with the familiar sets, routines and bits, proved to be very entertaining for the new audience. Would I like to see more discipline in how they opened and handled the event?
Yes. Would I have wanted to hear one or two routines they were still working on that I had not heard before? Yes. But generally, it was a great time.
FOMO
Now back to FOMO.
This week, specifically 12 to 17 August, the Nairobi International Comedy Festival is happening in, yes, you guessed it Nairobi.
From Mövenpick to Nairobi Laugh Bar, to Baraza Media Lab, to Under a Swahili Tree.
The festival brings the crème de la crème of comedians from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the UK, and the US.
There is even a puppet show from Darren Collins. If you like stand-up and you were not at Maina’s show, you have multiple chances this week to catch something special.
