Conversation
BREAKFAST WITH …
KLENNETH POMBO COMEDIAN & SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER BY CARMEL PILOTTI | PHOTOGRAPH: GODFREEMAN KAPTIGAU
Why have you chosen the Kopi Haus Restaurant at the Holiday Inn for breakfast? I love the place – been coming here since I was a kid. And love the breakfast buffet. What have you chosen for breakfast? I got bread, beans, salami and ham. For breakfast I like to carb load because I move around a lot. Lots of carbs and lots of protein. You chose stand-up comedy as a career a few years ago. Stand-up is not very common in Papua New Guinea, so how is it going? It started out as a hobby and came from telling jokes and making memes, and then turned into my career. In PNG, the audience don’t really get stand-up comedy yet, so I’ve been trying to find the balance between introducing it while keeping to what makes Papua New Guineans laugh. What makes Papua New Guineans laugh? It’s mainly slapstick comedy. It’s more people laughing at you than laughing with you. With stand-up, it’s more of you bringing stuff that makes you laugh and sharing with other people for them to laugh with you. How nerve-wracking is it to do a stand-up routine? I’ve been performing for a while, since I was a child, so I’ve never 10 PNG NOW JUNE–AUGUST 2022
The only thing that makes me nervous is if the crowd is not getting my jokes.
how it works from Trevor Noah. You have Kevin Hart who has very good storytelling skills. He can tell an ordinary story, but his delivery makes it funny. Then you have people like Dave Chappelle who delivers in a serious manner, but his ideas are the funny part.
had stage fright. The only thing that makes me nervous is if the crowd is not getting my jokes. When I first started out, I was really worried about it. So, finding the balance was important, between bringing my flavour and fusing it with what people are familiar with.
You’ve built quite a following on your social media platform PNG 4 Realz. What is it about? When I started the page in high school, there were a lot of regional pages talking about which place (in PNG) is better, so I created PNG 4 Realz (facebook. com/Png4Realz) for the purpose of pointing out that we have good and bad, and only together can we make the nation better. I do what I do to elevate and educate people’s mindsets, whether through humour, or actively going out into the community.
Most admired comedian? I see my most admired comedian every day I look in the mirror – you didn’t see that one coming did you (ha ha)! It’s almost a sin to copy someone’s style – while you do admire them, you can’t really have a favourite, because it might have too much of an influence on your work. I look more at the science than people – I read about what triggers laughter, how to write better. You can draw some things, though, from certain comedians. You can get the power of an accent and
Do you find that your audience receives your content well? What are some examples of your content? Yes, I would say they receive my content well. Most of the time I will make memes and do skits. But I’m starting to see people are also responding well to my videos, in which I give my take on current events. People like seeing my take on things, and in fact they ask me to have my say on certain things so they are more knowledgeable on it. I do a lot of research so people appreciate that.
