Category: Entertainment

Bimbo Manuel is a veteran Nigerian actor, who kicked off his career in entertainment on radio. Not many of his fans know that the actor is a writer and producer who specialises in various theatre and stage plays. Manuel has become a standout film star, who selects his scripts but delivers sterling performances at all times. The actor spoke with The Nation’s ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR, GBENGA BADA, on various issues.

Did you start with theatre and with the stage or with TV?

Actually, I started on Radio. Yes. I started on Radio and then I went to the television before I went to theatre school. And from theatre school it was a mixed bag at the beginning because I was combining everything, I was working on stage, I was working in front of a camera, NTA was the only employer of labour at that time and I was also doing voice-overs.

Back then the theatre was very big, in fact from what I know about the history of Nollywood, most of the film thing, before it became film, started from this Alarinjo theatre group where they move around, but now I see that in the last decade there has been a sudden resurgence of the theatre. Why do you think this is so and which do you prefer to work, live stage or film?

Okay, I’ll take the second question last. It’s a tough choice really because there are different art forms. In front of a camera, film and television drama, you can go quickly, be done with it and move to the next job. Stage you have to leave it, you have to leave it and it gives you a bit more, I think, a bit more room to express your craft, to actually grow your craft, so I honestly don’t have any preference. I enjoy both of them for different reasons.

I hear a lot of people say that there are a lot of plastic actors on TV and film, but when you want to know a real actor, he must be on stage.

I don’t think that necessarily applies to everybody. In the first place, I don’t know what the interpretation of plastic actors is on television and on film. I honestly don’t know what that means because it’s either an actor has given a true representation of the character he’s supposed to be playing or not. There is no ‘nearly’ in acting. It’s either you’re it or you’re not it. So if they’re talking about some actors not being believable in film and television, it’s a totally different thing entirely. Theater, because it is live and there is no room for correction, no second take, no ‘let’s do it again,’ it’s what you have that you deliver on the spot. It is as is. It tends to put the actor on his toes. You’re more mentally alert. You’re more mentally ready to do it. And I think the serious actor really should be able to carry the same discipline over into other art forms, whether it is radio, whether it is film, whether it is television. It should be able to go from one medium to another.

A lot of people believe that people tend to run away, except those who really have passion for the arts. A lot of people tend to run away from the theater because they believe that film pays better and that with film, it’s less time consuming. You just do it and move on to the next one. But with stage, you have to rehearse. Is that true?

Yes. It can be tempting, honestly, to work on film and to work television because, like you said, you spend less time going in and out of a character and you’re done with the projects they pay you off. And the pay is even higher, to be fair. However, I think it will be very easy for your craft to be dulled at the edges. You can become a bit soft. If nothing serious, like a stage, challenges you, you can quickly lose your edge. If you’re just working exclusively on film, on television, there’s nothing that pushes you. That extra nudge, something that takes you towards excellence. You know that you cannot fail because there is no second chance. It’s as you go on, that you’re going naked. The audience is waiting, you’re getting your reaction instantly from them. Unlike in film and television when you can go out and read your disgrace on social media. Stage is different. So I would say that in that regard, yes, stage does have an advantage. And it is very tempting to work in audiovisual, very, very.

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Before we move on to talk about the Lagos International Theater Festival, would we say that we can advocate the current interest in stage to people like Aunty Joke, Bolanle Austin Peters, because at some point, nobody was thinking about stage again until those are the prominent ones I hear about. Can we say they are the ones that helped to bring back stage?

There is no doubt about it. There is no doubt that we must acknowledge these people that you mentioned and some others. Late Wole Okutokun was a critical part of that renaissance. He was big on it. He was one of the first people that I would mention when we talk about the renaissance of the theater in Nigeria now. Because he just never gave up. He did different things that many people sneered at, were sure it would fail and so on. But he kept on. He kept on. Joke has also been critical to that renaissance. Bolanle Austin Peters keyed into that renaissance, that movement, very early. Very, very early. And I think a lot of credit should go to her. She’s invested her time and money. She’s invested her contacts. She’s invested her goodwill. She’s raised the theater. No matter how critical we are of anything that anybody is doing in theater today, I think they should be given their stripes. They deserve to be celebrated. Because theater died. As I was saying at a conference yesterday, the theater didn’t just slump. It died entirely. Entirely. People who trained for theater did not have jobs for a long time. A lot of them went to bank. Some even went back to their villages. I saw one, he relocated to Ghana. That was the kind of impact that that death of performances had on the people who work in the sector of entertainment. But suddenly, some of them are coming back. And suddenly again, theater is now employing from film. You find a lot of celebrities who are now performing on stage. Those people you mentioned and quite a few other people deserve to be celebrated for that renaissance.

Let’s talk about the Lagos International Theater Festival. How long has it been on?

This is the first edition. This is the maiden edition of the Lagos International Theater Festival. This is the first one. People are coming from across the world. I know about South Africa. I know that some are coming from the USA. A couple of other places. There are five centers. Four centers where it should be happening. All of them are iconic. There is Muson, where my play is going to play. There is Glover Hall. There is the University of Lagos and the Terraculture, of course.

What necessitated the choice or the decision to hold the Lagos International Theater Festival?

It is overdue. It is overdue. Most civilizations of the world, that have any theater culture, usually have a gathering. Usually, an annual gathering of people who work in that sector. Because it gives visibility to the things that people are doing in little corners across cities, across the country, and so they can come together and they can attract their theater audience. That’s a very big reason. Number two is that there is nothing of this scale that can be calendared in the Nigerian entertainment annual calendar. That people can come from everywhere, from across the world, to say, there is going to be a theater festival in Lagos, in Nigeria. It goes beyond Lagos. This could be happening in Akwa Ibon states, but we need to have that kind of… There was, of course, Lagos Theater Festival, and there is the Lagos Fringe Festival. But this has a global coloration to it because there are contributors from everywhere across the world. There were many who would even have come if time and logistics had permitted, I’m sure. So it’s become quite necessary for it to become a calendared event. Part of that end-of-year thing. This is the theater season in Nigeria from, say, September, October until January. This is our season. And I think it is just right that, again, it is situated smack in that season. So it’s been very necessary. Everybody else has it, but beyond anybody else having it, we do not have anything that we can use as well to attract the global audience to theater in Nigeria.

Would it be right to say one of the major reasons theater died at that time was the lack of infrastructure facilities, to be precise? I remember very well that for a long time it was only the National Theatre before Muson Center came on and Terraculture, and Glover Hall was now changed and all. But would it be right to say the lack of those facilities to promote theater actually contributed to the death at that time?

That’s just spot on. Because the people who play theater, even people who were playing it at that time, never had the kind of resources that would allow them to enter a place like Muson to go and perform plays. The money to do it was beyond them. So it was only the National Theatre that they had access to on some kind of bargain deal. Okay, if 20 people enter, we get 50 percent. All kinds of arrangements that just enabled them to be able to continue to engage. There was nowhere else. Terraculture had not come into existence. Glover was absolutely dead back then. Even the National Theatre was falling apart. Muson was too expensive and too exclusive for everyone, you know. But when theater gradually came back, some of those issues were fixed, it looked like they were just organic solutions. Bolanle came with her passion for theater and then she developed Terraculture.

Terraculture then became the vanguard of that renaissance. Muson started to allow plays, beyond just music which was built for, they started to allow plays to be performed in the space, to engage the space. The legal state government gave money to revive and renovate Glover Hall. And now the National Theatre is back as well. Another couple of months, maybe, we’ll be watching performances there. So, yes, infrastructure contributed to the death of it. And then, of course, there was the audience challenge. And then the funding issues as well. So, it was hydro-headed. People are more competent now and they’re dealing with it. And that’s why we have this revival.

Now, let’s put the theater by the side for a while.

Why now? (Laughs)

So now, my question is this. You’ve worked with a lot of old actors from the days of Checkmate. Who do you think are the most creative and professional between veteran actors and the young and emerging actors?

You see, I don’t even understand what Old Nollywood is and what New Nollywood is yet. So, it’s hard for me to compare them, you know. What makes one old? What makes one new? I honestly don’t know the difference.  You see, everybody, everybody is reacting to the most current challenges. Challenges in the sense that you encounter a character. You encounter a script. It makes demands of you. And what qualifies you as a good actor or director or whatever is how you react to it. So, the realities of the people who are coming from the past or who played in the past were totally different. You can’t say five words these days without referring to social media, without referring to all those high-tech things and so on. But back then, the TV we knew was grounding, no remote control. Yes, you go there and turn it ka, ka, ka, ka, ka. You get to the channel. Fuzzy and you wait for it patiently to clear. We didn’t have any remote control. We didn’t have all of that,. So, the realities are totally different. Our stories back then were also usually about mature people, maybe because the population was also relatively middle-aged at that time.

But now you’re dealing with a population in Nigeria that is about 60%, 67% young people. So, how they react to the stories that they tell themselves cannot be judged in any way using the same yardsticks as what happened to people in the past. So, if they’re good, they can only be judged based on what is the truth of that character, not compared to how so-and-so a person from the past might have done it. So, it’s hard to compare them.

What about their level of professionalism?

Oh no, that’s a sorry tale. That’s a sorry tale because one, because most of them, or quite a number did not come from a background of training in the craft. You have lawyers, you have medical doctors, you have engineers, you have scientists of different kinds, you have philosophers and everybody wanting to be actors.

And there is room. It’s not a gated discipline in practice, like law, medicine and so on. It’s not. It’s not gated in any way, you know. So, because nobody ever taught them those things that they’re just going to act as their natural instincts dictate to them. Don’t come late. We’re meeting at 7 o’clock. A professional actor would probably get there at about 6, max, like 6.45. So, 6.30, 7 o’clock that you say is call time, he is checking in and ready to follow the process. The other fellow, because he didn’t know that it’s supposed to be so, would probably get there at like 8.30 and explain to you how there was traffic getting out of his gates and expect you to understand. But you can’t go do that on a show day, on stage. That’s part of the issues that I thought you were referring to. You can’t do that because the audience is waiting for you. You’re not going to keep them waiting.

Have you had a scenario where you’re on set and a very junior or younger actor has kept you waiting?

Yes.

How does it make you feel?

I try not to be too emotional about things like that because I have my way of dealing with it. It is not my fellow actor’s problem. It is the problem of my producer. If you say, Mr. Manuel, I want you to get here at 3 o’clock and I get here at 3 o’clock, I sign in and the understanding I have with you is that I will work with you for 6 hours. By 9 o’clock, whether the other actor comes in at 8.15, it does not matter. I will leave by 9 o’clock. I will leave at 9 o’clock. It will not be out of any fury, not out of any anger. The actor that came late, I will relate with you normally because it is not my place as a fellow actor to discipline you. So complaining to you about your lateness I think is futile. It is totally worthless. It is not going to bring anything back to me.

The film industry is getting a lot of attention from international streaming networks, looking back 10-15 years ago, did you think it would be possible for our movies to be on the same platform as Hollywood movies?

It’s a good feeling to be honest. It’s a good feeling. Especially when you have travelled the kind of road that some of us have travelled. We worked when NTA, the sole employer of our craft at that time, was paying 20 Naira per episode of drama.