A Partnership That Works: Taiwo Oloyede and Nisola Jegede’s Gritty Lagos Drama

By Ugo Aliogo

In the city where dreams are bet and lost before sunrise, Oloyede Michael Taiwo’s ‘Wrinkles, Dimples, Naira and Bets’ conjures Lagos itself. The stage transforms into a betting shop, street corner, mother’s kitchen, father’s silence, the restless heartbeat of a city that never truly sleeps, only dozes in hope and wakes in despair.

Staged during the 2020 Lagos Theatre Festival in partnership with the British Council, the production demonstrates what theatre scholars recognise as “selective naturalism”, dialogue that appears natural but is carefully crafted to serve dramatic purposes. To achieve this authenticity, Taiwo Oloyede collaborated with Nisola Jegede, a writer and editor serving as Dialogue Authenticity Consultant. Jegede brought a linguistic strategy reflecting Lagos’s multilingual reality, incorporating pidgin English and local vernacular that makes the work accessible beyond the educated elite while allowing audiences to see themselves reflected in the characters’ struggles.

Their collaboration regarding character authentication creates immediate audience connection and reinforces thematic concerns about economic marginalisation. Characters function as archetypes of economic desperation, representing different responses to Nigeria’s crushing realities. This characterisation strategy reflects broader trends in contemporary Nigerian drama, where playwrights interrogate social phenomena from class struggle to systemic corruption.

The characterisation proves particularly effective in depicting psychological transformation when individuals turn to betting as salvation. Characters progress from cautious optimism to addictive desperation, mirroring documented patterns where over 65 million Nigerians place bets daily responding to economic hardship. The production’s success lies in transforming intimate theatrical spaces into a microcosm of Nigeria’s broader economic struggles, creating environmental conditioning where physical space becomes integral to meaning.

‘Wrinkles, Dimples, Naira and Bets’ represents Nigerian theatre’s ability to combine artistic innovation with social commentary, enabling audiences to understand the human cost of economic policies that drive people towards gambling.