Living in Lagos is a full-time job, surviving Lagos a top-level managerial position. It is that serious, yet Kenneth Uphopho’s stage adaptation of Bobo Omotayo’s London Life, Lagos Living insists it does not have to be. We don’t need to always take ourselves seriously. Sometimes, all we need is to do is share a space to laugh at our differences, our communalities, our quirks, and ourselves. That shared space was provided at Black Diamond Hotel, Ozumba Mbadiwe, Victoria Island, Lagos, from the 28th to 30th August, 2026. I was there on the night of the 29th.

Bobo Omotayo’s book is a short story collection that humourously contrasts the author’s experience living in the UK and living in Nigeria. Uphopho’s adaptation starts from the Arrivals section of the airport. What are the things a Lagosian who has been out of the country for a while notice upon returning? From the airport, such a person immediately notices that there is no queuing culture here. Everybody is in a hurry, ready to jump the line and cut corners and cuss one another out and make a mess and cause much more delays while suffering the illusion of saving time. And how you react, or how you are expected to react to the one who disrespects the queue, depends on how respectful of his age you are, how respectful of her socio-economic status you are.

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For respect in Lagos is almost about anything but respect. It is a voluntary state of subservience entered by the less financially buoyant in favour of the more financially buoyant. Where and when it involves someone with grey hairs with someone who still has decades before they can sprout grey hairs, the elder uses it as a means to dodge being accountable and being held to due process, because in Lagos we respect old age.

The hotel hall used for the production is not a conventional theatre but Olatodun Olagbadebo makes a theatre space out of it. The stage, though small, is greatly maximised and managed. Sets are moved by the cast as part of the play and  there is no lights coming up or down at the top or end of the play.The storytelling is not just immersive because the tales are ones the audience can easily relate to and the cast interact, from time to time, with the audience, it is immersive even in its design, in how the hall, what is now the house, is designed to be a larger part of the airport. Since the stage has no little space for elaborate set design, a LED Video Wall is used to efficiently manage space and achieve instantaneous scene transitions.

When the LED Video Wall shows an array of well-ironed white shirts neatly arranged in a wardrobe, Olusola Roberts takes the stage with a tale about one of the lesser-known (at least to Lagosians outside of a certain socio-economic demography) markers of wealth: what laundry services someone uses. A particular brand that charges triple the daily income of a minimum wage earner in the country to launder one shirt has become a status symbol. Roberts’ experience with a far cheaper laundry provider that left his clothes starched out of meaningful existence speaks to the other reality: sometimes, it’s not just about status. Sometimes, it’s about having the peace of mind that what you ordered is what will be delivered.

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Gideon Okeke, with the funny character voice he effects takes the laundry issue into the streets where all manner of clothing is openly-spread to sun dry. It shocks him to see a large spread of “shriveled thongs, huge briefs, and girdles—all stretched and seemingly fading in colour” sitting “nicely between expensive lace and brocades,” all belonging to the same person, in the clothesline in public view. He wonders what prevents the owner from getting a washing machine and dryer and before anybody says money, points out that this same owner also owns an expensive HD plasma TV and should have prioritsed better. I wonder what his advice would be to the Lagosian who cannot afford even a Black-and-White TV.

We may not be very honest with one another in Lagos. Chioma Omeruah may be living a “fake it till you make it” life in her office where she constantly has to pretend to be busy and occupied, but that doesn’t mean we are not open with a lot of things. For if we are not openly spreading our underwears in the streets, we are openly spreading what these underwears are meant to cover. Open urination is common in a Lagos where there is no proper arrangement for public convenience and, as the joke writes itself, the image exists of a man urinating directly on a pole that bears a “Do Not Urinate Here” sign, projected on the LED Video Wall, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how open and respectful we are in Lagos.

There is no shortage of what to satirise about living in Lagos and London Life, Lagos Living had plent of material to work with.There is the beauty pageantries and the fake accents and slop it produces during its Q&A session where everyone wants to use her makeup skills to save the girl-child. There is the child naming ceremony that is about every other thing but the child being named. And there are such annoying questions like, “How was your night?” thrown at you by every one from the hotel receptionist, to your colleagues at work, none of whom really cares about your night. And the staple in business connects and networking sessions: What do you do for a living? Dude, I live in Lagos!

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Tosin Adeyemi asks why this is always amongst the first three questions we ask ourselves whenever we meet, why we cannot, as we used to in the past, bond over small talk and go on to discover one another. Why someone worthy of having a conversation with depends on the answer to this question: What do you do for a living? Do we even bother finding out if the person is actually living?

Any story about living in Lagos is incomplete if the dating scene is not talked about, and that capital-intensive environment automatically divides the cast along gender lines. Kate Henshaw, Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, Chioma Omeruah, Imoh Eboh, Tosin Adeyemi, and Laura Jombo, on one side, and on the other, Olusola Roberts, Rotimi Fakunle and Gideon Okeke. The case in focus is a dinner date where the man, simply by the virtue of being a man, is expected to take care of all the expenses. And all the expenses aren’t just what he and the lady eats, but the lady’s dinner dress, hair, and nails. Oh, and  what her three friends that came with her to the date for security reasons eat. Then of course, he has to drive to her place to pick them up and drive them to the expensive restaurant… chosen by the lady. It doesn’t matter the distance the man has to cover to achieve this. If the dating scene is like this, I leave you to imagine how the play handles the marital home.

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With Ayo Alade’s original compositions sang excellently by the cast, the songs help underline the messages of the satire while pacing the play and giving the audience a wonderful listening experience. London Life, Lagos Living is a play that leaves us laughing, not at Lagos, but at ourselves. A terrific production, through and through. In its subtle and not so-subtle endorsements of the brands that supported the production though, one wonders when does it stop being a play, when does it become a theatrical advertisement of brands? When is appreciation overstretched and, most importantly, how do we support our theatre?

London Life, Lagos Living is a production to admire for its many strengths. It’s witty and moving, and its ensemble of seasoned actors leave no one in doubt as to their expertise.