After weeks of intense training in the area of performing arts, eleven Gambian youths sponsored by GAMJOBS will have the opportunity to showcase their potentials in what is widely anticipated to be a thrilling mega theatre showdown this Friday 20th and Saturday 21st commencing each day at 8pm, at the Ebunjang Theatre complexsituated at Kanifing South. This information was disclosed at a press conference held on Tuesday at the centre.

The Centre is under the directive of a renowned historian cum artist, Janet Badjan Young. The forthcoming theatre comic play will witness the young actors and actresses perform plays like ‘The trial of Busumbala’ by Gambian play write Gabriel Roberts and the ‘Trial of Brother Jero’ anotherthrilling comic playby a renowned Nigerian prize winner for Literature -Wole Soyinka.

Giving a synopsis of this thrilling comic plays, Aunty Janet Badjan Young explained that these plays were set in the 60’s during a time of political and cultural change in Africa stressing that Gabriel Roberts’s play is about an arrogant principal at the Armitage School in Georgetown.

“He was educated in Britain, where he developed a passion for classical music. Back in the Gambia, he decided to impose his taste on the community through a constantly blearing radio set, tuned of course to the BBC .The community decided to take the law into their own hands and remove the offending radio to save their sanity. This play was the only Gambian play to be aired on BBC in the radios series-African Theatre in 1962’, she explained;

On the contrast, ‘The Trial of Brother Jero’ according to Aunty Badjang Young, is satiric comedy on phony religious groups that were surfacing at an alarming rate in Nigeria. She explained that, the main characterBrother Jero, is master of manipulation, who keeps his followers in a subservient position because he understand what they long for money , social status and power . This is only because of one Soyinka’s best known plays.

Badjang young further revealed thatapart from the training course, the trainees have been working with experience and top notch among them John Njie, Ousman Jarju of Mediamatic, Syl Johnson, Mike Dara, Abdoulie Kamara, Aurelia Prom, DanielNzima, Dr Henry Carrol, Arebeke Fansu and Milton Kamanga..

She further posited that this production will provide them with some of the initial skills needed to secure employment in the entertainment, communication, tourism and education sectors in the Gambia.