Baba Sala’s Alawada Theatre belonged to a sophisticated culture of Yoruba popular entertainment that flourished decades before the emergence of modern Nigerian video film. Led by Moses Olaiya Adejumo, popularly known as Baba Sala, the company combined comedy, music, touring, newspaper publicity and scheduled performances to reach audiences in different cities and districts.
Two Daily Times advertisements provide a revealing view of that operation. The first, published in June 1971, promoted a comedy at Glover Hall in Lagos. The second, published in April 1972, announced an ambitious itinerary that moved from Ibadan through several parts of metropolitan Lagos.
Together, the advertisements show that Alawada was more than the public vehicle of a famous comedian. It was an organised theatrical enterprise capable of marketing named productions, negotiating venues, fixing performance dates and charging different admission prices.
Baba Sala’s Alawada Theatre in Postwar Lagos
The Nigerian Civil War ended in January 1970. By the following year, Lagos was again at the centre of the country’s political, commercial and cultural life. It served as Nigeria’s federal capital and the capital of Lagos State, while its newspapers, broadcasting institutions, hotels and public halls supported a growing entertainment market.
This was the environment in which Baba Sala’s Alawada Theatre promoted its productions. Lagos offered large and varied audiences, but success required careful organisation. A travelling theatre company had to arrange rehearsals, transport performers and equipment, secure venues, publicise appearances and collect enough ticket revenue to sustain its work.
The name Alawada suited the company’s comic identity. In Yoruba, awada refers to joking or comedy, while alawada describes a comedian or joker. Baba Sala transformed that identity into one of the most recognisable comic personas in Nigerian entertainment.
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His performances often depended on expressive movement, verbal confusion, exaggerated clothing and the comic consequences of vanity, greed or misunderstanding. His appearance and behaviour made him immediately identifiable, whether audiences encountered him on stage, television or later in the cinema.
The 1971 Glover Hall Advertisement
On Saturday, 19 June 1971, the Daily Times carried an advertisement announcing that Moses Olaiya Theatre would present the Alawada Group in a comedy titled Abese ku bi ojo.
The performance was scheduled for Tuesday, 22 June 1971, at Glover Hall in Lagos. It was to begin at 8 p.m. Admission was advertised at three rates: ten shillings and sixpence, seven shillings and sixpence, and five shillings.
The advertisement presented Baba Sala in a comic boxing situation and invited audiences to watch him enter the ring. In its compact form, the notice contained the essential elements of a carefully planned theatrical event. It supplied the production’s title, venue, date, starting time, admission prices and principal attraction.
Glover Hall was an established cultural venue on Lagos Island. It regularly accommodated plays, concerts, films and public events. Its use by Alawada placed the company within the recognised entertainment circuit of the federal capital.
The advertisement also used both “Moses Olaiya Theatre” and “The Alawada Group”. This combination connected the production directly to its founder while preserving a distinct company identity. Baba Sala was the star, but Alawada was presented as a theatrical organisation with its own public name.
Understanding the Admission Prices
Nigeria still used pounds, shillings and pence in 1971. The naira and kobo were introduced on 1 January 1973, when one naira replaced ten shillings.
Using that official conversion, the five-shilling ticket became 50 kobo. Seven shillings and sixpence became 75 kobo, while ten shillings and sixpence became ₦1.05.
The three rates demonstrate that the company operated a differentiated admission system. This allowed Alawada to attract audiences across more than one price category while generating revenue to meet the costs of transportation, venue hire, costumes, musicians, publicity and other production expenses.
Ticketing was therefore part of a broader commercial structure. The company was not simply gathering spectators around a popular comic figure. It was selling access to an organised production presented at a recognised venue.
A Seven-Performance Tour in 1972
A second Daily Times advertisement, published on 27 April 1972, provides an even clearer picture of Alawada’s mobility. It promoted a new comedy titled Fehin Tagba and announced seven performances across eight days.
The tour began at Obisesan Hall in Ibadan on 28 and 29 April. It then moved to Glover Hall in Lagos for performances on 1 and 2 May.
From there, the company travelled through metropolitan Lagos. It appeared at the Mobolaji Johnson Sports Centre in Yaba on 3 May, Palm Beach Hotel in Surulere on 4 May and Mayflower Hotel in Mushin on 5 May.
The itinerary required Alawada to move from Ibadan to Lagos and then between several densely populated districts. Each stop involved a separate venue, audience and local publicity effort.
The schedule captures the practical meaning of travelling theatre. The company did not depend on a single permanent stage. It carried its productions to halls, hotels and recreational centres where audiences could gather.
This mobility widened Alawada’s reach. Lagos Island, Yaba, Surulere and Mushin represented different sections of the expanding city, while Ibadan was already one of the most important centres of Yoruba cultural and broadcasting activity.
The tour also reveals the discipline required to sustain a travelling company. Performers, costumes, musical instruments and other equipment had to be packed, transported and prepared for each engagement within a demanding timetable.
Travelling Theatre as a Professional Enterprise
Yoruba travelling theatre developed into one of Nigeria’s most influential popular performance traditions during the twentieth century. Companies associated with figures such as Hubert Ogunde, Kola Ogunmola, Duro Ladipo, Oyin Adejobi and Moses Olaiya Adejumo created productions that could be performed repeatedly in different towns and cities.
Travelling theatre required structure and discipline. Companies needed performance frameworks, rehearsals, musicians, costumes, props and dependable transportation. Productions often developed through repeated performance, with scenes refined as actors responded to new venues and audiences.
This combination of preparation and flexibility became a defining feature of Yoruba popular theatre. The actors could preserve recognisable stories and characters while adapting individual performances to the atmosphere of each engagement.
Alawada’s newspaper advertisements also reveal the commercial side of this tradition. Dates had to be agreed in advance. Newspaper space had to be purchased. Venues had to be secured, and audiences had to know where and when to attend.
The 1972 itinerary is especially significant because it records an intensive sequence of appearances. The company was expected to perform, pack its equipment, travel and prepare for the next engagement within a short period.
Posters, Newspapers and the Lagos Theatre Circuit
A 1975 visitors’ guide to Lagos advised people interested in Yoruba theatre to watch for posters carrying the names of Duro Ladipo, Ogunde or Alawada.
The guide identified Glover Hall, Randle Hall, the University of Lagos, the College of Education at Akoka and Yaba College of Technology as regular performance locations. It also noted that Yoruba theatre’s music and dancing could appeal to spectators who did not understand the language.
Changing venues and poster advertising were central parts of the theatrical economy. Audiences followed newspaper announcements and public posters to discover where companies would perform next.
The Daily Times advertisements therefore served as more than simple notices. They connected an itinerant entertainment company with an urban public. A reader could learn the title of the production, identify the nearest venue, choose an admission price and plan an evening around the advertised starting time.
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This publicity also helped to turn Baba Sala into a commercial brand. His name, image and comic personality could attract audiences even before they knew the full details of a new production.
The Alawada Film Magazine
The 1972 Fehin Tagba advertisement contained another significant feature. It promoted an “Alawada Film Magazine”, described as a comedy photoplay.
A photoplay could present a dramatic story through staged photographs accompanied by captions or dialogue. By connecting such a publication with its stage production, Alawada extended its comic identity beyond live performance.
This linked theatre, photography, print and commercial advertising. It was an early example of the multimedia thinking that became increasingly important in Nigerian entertainment.
A popular character could move between stage performance, television, printed images and cinema. The Alawada name could therefore reach people who had not attended a particular live performance.
The magazine also demonstrates that Baba Sala’s organisation understood the commercial value of a recognisable entertainment identity. Alawada was not simply the title of a theatre group. It was becoming a brand that could be attached to different forms of popular media.
From Stage and Television to Cinema
Nigerian television had already begun in Western Nigeria in 1959. By the early 1970s, Yoruba theatre performers were working within a cultural environment where live stage production and broadcasting could reinforce one another.
Television allowed performers to become familiar beyond the towns visited by their companies. Touring, however, continued to provide direct contact with paying audiences and remained an important source of income.
Baba Sala later carried his comic persona into celluloid cinema. One of the most important examples was Orun Mooru, released in 1982. The film was directed by Ola Balogun for Alawada Movies, with Moses Olaiya Adejumo in the leading role.
Yoruba travelling theatre became an important route through which Nigerian performers, stories and dramatic conventions entered celluloid cinema. Theatre practitioners brought established audiences, experienced actors, familiar comic styles and locally grounded narratives to the screen.
Alawada formed a significant part of the history that preceded Nollywood. Its importance lies in the way it connected live performance, newspaper publicity, television, print and cinema across different periods of Nigerian entertainment history.
Conclusion
The Daily Times advertisements of 1971 and 1972 preserve an important record of Baba Sala’s Alawada Theatre at work.
The first records a named production at Glover Hall, complete with a fixed starting time and three admission rates. The second reveals a seven-performance itinerary moving through Ibadan, Lagos Island, Yaba, Surulere and Mushin.
These advertisements show that Alawada operated through planning, publicity and mobility. It booked recognised venues, marketed its productions and took comedy directly to audiences across a rapidly changing urban landscape.
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The Alawada Film Magazine also demonstrates that the company was expanding its identity beyond the stage. That movement between theatre, print, television and film became one of Baba Sala’s most important contributions to Nigerian entertainment history.
Long before Nollywood became an internationally recognised industry, Baba Sala and his company were helping to build the audiences, performance traditions and commercial networks upon which later Nigerian screen culture would grow.
Author’s Note
Baba Sala’s career demonstrates that modern Nigerian entertainment emerged from decades of touring theatre, broadcasting, newspaper advertising and experimentation with new media. The Alawada advertisements remind us that behind the laughter stood a disciplined commercial organisation that understood how to create a memorable character, reach different communities and adapt popular performance to a changing technological world.
References
Daily Times, Lagos, 19 June 1971, p. 11. Advertisement for Abese ku bi ojo.
Daily Times, Lagos, 27 April 1972. Advertisement for Fehin Tagba and the Alawada Film Magazine.
Central Bank of Nigeria. “1973 Currency Issue” and “History of Nigerian Currency”.
Barber, Karin. The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Jeyifo, Biodun. The Yoruba Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria. Lagos: Department of Culture, Federal Ministry of Social Development, Youth, Sports and Culture, 1984.
Lakoju, Tunde. “Popular Travelling Theatre in Nigeria: The Example of Moses Olaiya Adejumo, Alias Baba Sala.” Nigeria Magazine, no. 149, 1984, pp. 35–46.
Seriki, E., and E. Pullybank. Visitors Guide to Lagos. Lagos: West African Book Publishers, 1975.
Haynes, Jonathan. “Ola Balogun’s Lost Classics: Aiye and Orun Mooru.” In The Magic of Nigeria: On the Cinema of Ola Balogun. Frankfurt am Main: Filmkollektiv Frankfurt, 2016, pp. 177–185.
