By Kennedy Nyavaya
Comedian Long John, real name Learnmore Mwanyenyeka, is on cloud nine after scooping the Best Stand-Up Comedy award at the All the Laughs Comedy awards hosted in Atlanta, United States.
According to their website, All the Laughs is “a festival open to comedy creators of all formats, including stand-up, sketch, improv, podcasts and more”, and this year it was hosted virtually because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Ok guys I have great news. [I have] just received news that I won the All the Laughs Comedy Award [Atlanta, USA] in the Best Stand-Up Comedy Category,” posted Long John on Facebook.
Speaking to Standard Style about the new addition to his award cabinet, the 27-year-old attributed this and other successes to his grandparents for being supportive from the day he started pursuing the funny business.
“They supported me from day one, they gave me money to travel to Harare and Bulawayo just to try out comedy and continued to support me, so without them, I wouldn’t be the comedian I am today,” he said from his base in South Africa.
Growing up in rural Chimanimani, Long John attests that he would not have imagined achieving what he has now. Last year he won the coveted Steve Harvey Stand-up Comedy competition after scooping the Pan-African Comic of the Year, adding to several local awards.
All of it has seen people take him seriously, he says:
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“The first thing that changed after winning these awards is that people started taking me seriously as a comedian and not a lot of people believed in me or my vision, but these achievements have opened doors that were closed before.
Had it not been for the travel restrictions put in place worldwide since the beginning of the year, Long John would have been on world-class tours with Harvey, but despite being unable to do so now, he insists that he will be “getting out of this [Covid-19 situation] better and stronger.”
“You know, I was supposed to be touring the US right now opening for Steve Harvey and I had planned a world tour around big festivals like Just For Laughs and Edinburgh Festival , but it’s fine because although this lockdown was tough in the early days, I learnt a lot from it,” he said.
With most borders fast re-opening, Long John revealed that he was preparing more content to perform on different stages across the globe.
“Right now, I’m working on my new show titled Happily Uneducated and I also have The Village Boy in my pocket and the plan is to perform these two shows around the world,” he said.
“Hopefully, one of them will get picked up by Netflix or any other platform. I just hope this pandemic won’t affect these plans again.”
