PRESS RELEASE: My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians goes Pan-African with the addition of Daliso Chaponda, Malawi’s top comedian.
This guy almost got arrested for a stand-up routine.
Malawi’s top comedian Daliso Chaponda considers himself an “exile baby”. He was born in Zambia during the dictatorship of Dr. Hastings Banda owing to his father being a political refugee. Chaponda didn’t visit Malawi until he was 11 and due to his father’s role in the United Nations, he spent various parts of his youth living in Kenya, Thailand, Australia and Switzerland, to name but a few.
It was whilst studying in Canada that Chaponda found his feet in comedy, honing his craft in comedy clubs across the country and culminating in an appearance in the 2005 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. Chaponda now considers Manchester, England his place of abode but, almost constantly tours internationally appearing at festivals and comedy clubs in Australasia, the UK, Asia and Africa.
My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians exec-producer, Nick Wilson had heard from various sources that “no Pan-African comedy cast would be complete without Daliso Chaponda”. He elaborated; “There is such an amazing backstory to Daliso’s life and comedy career; his father is a former Minister of Education and he was threatened with arrest in Malawi for telling a joke about a conversation he had with him. 2 of the central themes in My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians are education and African politicians. Daliso’s life experiences will add incredible value to the authenticity of the show!”
Daliso Chaponda 2014 Excerpt
Video Excerpt from BBC’s English Regions Show that nearly got Daliso arrested in Malawi
Chaponda; a prolific writer who was a finalist in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest in 2006, was shortlisted for the Carl Brandon Society Award and recently co-wrote a play which aired on BBC Radio 4, said of his addition to the My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians team; “This is such a great project that I’ll take time out of plotting the overthrow of the Malawi government and starting a new religion to write for it”.
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