In October 1995, Opa Williams organised the first edition of Nite of a Thousand Laughs, Nigeria’s first mainstream comedy show. The show enjoyed critical success and ran for 17 years, producing some of the biggest comedy talents in the country like Basketmouth, Okey Bakassi, Julius Agwu, and Klint Da Drunk, amongst others. In that span of time, these artists went from being struggling comedians to multimillionaires. As the new acts became successful, they also created their independent show and events, cementing the idea that for comedians, the only route to success was through the stage.
As most of these events were in Lagos, hopeful comedians would travel from out of state to navigate the politics in the industry and secure slots at a comedy show. There were running “Warri” jokes among comedians, as a large number moved from Warri to Lagos for their careers. These talents spent months tirelessly working to craft material or scripts that were good enough to make the…
