Mojak Lehoko

Mojakisane 'Mojak' Lehoko, is a South African actor, comedian and scriptwriter. Quotes There’s a feeling of collective grief since the pandemic. I speak a lot about mental health, anxiety and grief on the show and I think a lot of people could relate to that. We grow up being told ‘you should be strong’ or that ‘men don’t cry’ isn’t normal. There are elements of older shows, but most of it is new. I didn’t try it [the material] here in [Joburg] which was quite risky, but it went well. Yea it is one of the things that motivated it, but the last three years have been hectic for a lot of people. We’re all grieving… some people are grieving the loss of relationships, jobs or plans that didn’t work out. There are versions of us we’ve all lost. The show is an opportunity to address what I was dealing with. I’ve been on board for a while now. But I come in a bit later in the process after the scrips is done. The lot of the story is already there, we don’t try to change much. I started on the LNN (Late Nite News With Loyiso Gola) show in 2010 and then Kagiso Lediga gave me an opportunity on Bantu Hour. You need to have an understanding of politics in a satirical show. On Bantu Hour we had to create a scenario and then the jokes-it’s building a world in a lot less of time. While those things are already there on a show like Black Tax. I spent about four weeks there shadowing David Kibuuka where I shared his office. It was similar to the LNN but it was more intense because the shows were everyday unlike once a week on LNN. Mojak Lehoko: On writing for Black Tax and tackling grief in new stand-up show,The Citizen, July 5 2023 In every show I have done, I have been able to control the performance and the audience’s reactions, and you kind of know what people are going to expect. This is one of those shows where, even if I explained it to you for hours and hours, you would still not be ready for the twists and turns. I’m highly competitive, analytical and a bit mischievious. I think that would be the best way to describe myself. This one man show is a collection of the bits that i have been doing over the last few years. I have decided to put it together with an ark of my journey, since I started doing stand-up. Some of it is about being a student at Wits, some of it is about working as a Quantity Surveyor, other bits are retrospective, like growing up in a town ship in Suburbia, and noticing the differences and the culture shocks that I got going to Northcliff High School, which was cool. For example, my Zulu teacher was Miss Anthill and that was weird. She would greet us like ‘Sanibonani Children’ and we knew that the word children is not a Zulu word. So it’s about growing up in all these different places and talking about that journey. It is similar. This is a stand up show. As comics we have club sets, then we also have one man shows, where we can delve a little more into topics that we want to discuss, as there is more time. This show is going to be about an hour. A club set is usually 20 minutes. I guess they are pretty similar. It is just an extended version of what I would normally do. Yeah. There are guys who do satire, there are guys who a bit more surreal. There are observational acts, physical comedians. There are different break downs within comedy itself. There are guys who do one liners, musical comedians, ventriloquism…. I guess observational with a little satire here and there. For the most part observational. I think I just stumbled on it. It was stuff I wanted to talk about, that I noticed around me. So it wasn’t really a concerted effort to be an observational act. It is just how I see the world. I would love to do musical comedy, but I have a terrible voice. So I’m not going to try that. I think everyone is funny, especially in front of friends and family. But doing it in front of strangers is a totally different creature. The beginning of the process is writing jokes, and then trying them out on stage to an audience, and then the audience will let you know whether it works or not, and you keep doing those jokes and developing them into bigger bits. Everyone has a different method. These are just jokes that I have collected over the years. But there are guys who will have a narrative and write half an hour and go on from there. I’m still figuring out my process and voice. So this has a narrative, but I’m piecing all my work together. I never envisioned myself doing stand-up. In fact I wanted to be a music producer, I used to make beats in high school. Or I saw myself as a career academic, but then I got lazy. Basically my friends and I were at varsity and there used to be this open mic night at Cool Runnings in Melville and we did spots. The first set that I had was mediocre, but they invited me back and I kept going and I think in 2010 I started taking it more seriously. A friend of mine at school was on ‘So you think you’re funny’ and he introduced me to these other comedians, and we would go to Witbank and do these shows at random venues. I never really planned it, it was just something I stumbled on and went with it. I really enjoyed it and so continued doing it. I think I have an idea. A lot of it is chance. You never know where the world will take you. I didn’t think I would ever do stand-up or write for TV. The world always points you in a certain direction and you can either seize that opportunity or go somewhere else. I used to work as a Quantity-Surveyor and it was horrible to wake up at 6am, sit through traffic and have to measure concrete the whole day, basically. I didn’t enjoy it. I am not cut out for an office job. Because it is hilarious. I think it is a good show, its entertaining. I have done it a few times and people have enjoyed it. It is a good, fun night out. Mojak Lehoko, November 24 2014 I prefer them for different things. Stand-up is immediate; if you make a joke and people laugh, then it works. If they stare at you blankly, you know that one needs some work. Writing is cool because I also like working in isolation sometimes. And then acting is dope because you’re creating something that someone wrote and you’re giving it life. Voice overs are maybe the weirdest because you’re just in a booth, people are in another room and they say random things to you, like: ‘Try to make it more funny, yet sad, with energy, but not too much energy so that it’s composed. Okay? Go.’ And then you’re just like okay I have no idea where to go here. Mojak Lehoko beats Trevor Noah #SavannaCCA, IOL, September 11 2017 Category:Comedians Category:People from South Africa Category:Living people