Daliso Chaponda

Humor and Storytelling

“Creativity is like being in a sandbox. You have to be willing to throw the sand around!”

Comedian Daliso Chaponda shot to fame on Britain’s Got Talent, making it to the finals of the 2017 series and establishing himself as a firm favorite with the judges and the British public. Since then, he has regularly appeared on TV and radio.

Appearances include The Royal Variety Performance, Good Evening Britain, and Britain’s Got Talent Champions 2019 (ITV), The Complaints Department and Rhod Gilbert’s Growing Pains (Comedy Central), Unforgivable (Dave), The News Quiz, Just A Minute and The Now Show (BBC Radio 4). Chaponda is also a regular guest on QI and The Apprentice: You’re Fired (BBC2).

Daliso is also the writer, creator, and host of his Rose d’Or nominated BBC Radio 4 show Citizen of Nowhere, now in its third season. He has performed around the world and at the Edinburgh, Melbourne, Singapore, and Cape Town comedy festivals. He has also toured the UK twice to sold-out venues and rave reviews. He is currently touring with his latest show Apocalypse Not Now. In addition to his stand-up comedy, Chaponda is also prolific fiction writer. He has published science fiction, murder mysteries, and fantasy fiction in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is currently working on a new novel and a children’s book.

Describing what he seeks in applicants for his mentorship, Chaponda says: “I love all stories. Fiction, spoken word with a narrative thrust, all of it. I feel I would be most useful to people who want to develop their storytelling skills, but of course also to those who want to work with humor. I’m looking for people with big ideas, who know what they want to accomplish and are willing to try unconventional ways to get there,” he adds. “As a mentor, I can help catalyze ideas as well as offer support as a dramaturge and constructive critic.”

 

TV appearance, QI on BBC2, © Fremantlemedia and QI Ltd

He adds: “My specialties are humor and storytelling, but I am happy to work with anyone on any story-based project. I am open to supporting an artist with an opera, a graphic novel, a children’s book, a stand-up show … any story, in any format, as long as you are passionate about it!”

dalisochaponda.com

Watch the video statement to find out more about what Chaponda is looking for in applications:

Nominees

Hamza Baig

The Marblous Four

Pakistani filmmaker Hamza Baig proposes a live-action series that reimagines the traditional game of Five Stones with a superhero twist. Set in the imaginary village of “Geetapur” (inspired by Chakwal, Pakistan,) the plot centers on the local children, who possess a set of magical marbles that have the power to sustain life in the village. The story follows Guddo, whose attempt to help her peers through the use of her unique marbles repeatedly ends in disaster. The narrative interweaves humor with drama and is to unfold against the backdrop of an extremely modest community knit together by tradition. At the Forecast Forum, Baig will hold an interactive play session followed by the premiere of a promo for the web series.

Jo Güstin

Life Is Too Short to Be Straight

Writer, director, producer, and comedian Jo Güstin celebrates Black and queer joy and creativity using fiction and comedy. Her project centers on her move to Canada, in 2019, to boost her career and be closer to her cousin Yann, who had been begging her to join him there for years. But while Jo Güstin was on the plane from Paris to Toronto, Yann unexpectedly passed away. Billed as a “dead serious comedy special,” Life Is Too Short to Be Straight is a comedic approach to grief, mortality, anxiety and the fear of failure of an artist relocating on the eve of a global pandemic. The show’s final production, supported by the Ontario Arts Council, will be set in an animated child's bedroom, where an audience of old toys will react to Jo Güstin’s jokes.

Patricia Achiro Olwoch

Sex or Slave

Writer and filmmaker Patricia Achiro Olwoch is writing her debut novel Sex or Slave. Set in 1940s Uganda, it explores LGBTQ issues under colonial rule. The protagonist is eighty-year-old Achi Lamwono, who when her grandson is attacked on the street after he is outed in the local paper, talks him out of suicide by telling him of her own forbidden lesbian love story as a young girl. Her first and only love was Sheila Rocker, with whom she had an affair while they were both married to the boy’s late grandfather, Richard Rocker. The novel follows the life of the young Lamwono who was given away to a white master by her parents and then fell in love with her mistress.

Mentee

The Marblous Four

Hamza Baig

Mentors Edition 7

Daliso Chaponda

Daliso Chaponda

Humor and Storytelling

Alia Ibrahim

A Dance with Reality

Florentina Holzinger

Bodies in Action

Laura Huertas Millán

Reworlding Stories

Ana Prvački

Ana Prvački

Slapstick and Seduction

Rully Shabara

Rully Shabara

Your Voice Is Your Sound