Dear Kaffy: Diary of a Single Woman, the rollicking laugh-out-loud musical comedy has taken London by storm after sold out performances in Lagos and Pretoria.
Helmed by lawyer turned thespian turned auteur, Bolanle Austen-Peters, it opened at Shaw Theatre off Euston Road on Friday 7 August with a full house.
Starring Nollywood star and former Gulder Ultimate Search contestant, Uzor Ozimkpa, the play revolves around three women – Kike, Bidemi and Shalewa. The play opens with good old yabis as Bidemi and Shalewa trade barbs.
Bidemi tells Shalewa– “…nine years and he still hasn’t put a ring on it.”
When Shalewa dishes back her own yabis, Bidemi deflects with “I am on a man cleanse.”
But the story is Kike’s as she recounts her sad experiences at the hands of men especially Femi, the Yoruba demon and tamuno, the gym rat, both of whom exploit her love and vulnerabilities in ways that leave her broken and distrustful of love, so much so that when Debo appears, she is so jaded and blase to not recognize a good man when she sees him.
Spiced with music, jokes by the truckloads and good old ribaldry, Dear Kaffy becomes much more than a play; it becomes an exploration of contemporary romance and excoriation of age shaming and societal pressures on women whose biological clocks are ticking.
The pressure for a woman, whom as Tolani puts it is “5 minutes to 40” is immense eclipsing whatever she has achieved in life. The sub text is that a successful woman without a ring on her finger is less than.
That pressure and weight of expectation is at the heart of Kike’s confession at the beginning that the play is not about men or women but “about the choices that we make and how they affect our lives.”
That pressure compels her to choose to ignore Femi’s infidelity and makes her overlook Tamuno’s obvious disregard for her as no more than an ATM machine or as he puts it “your are my financial backbone” because she needs to present a man to her parents.
Uzor Osimkpa who has played Kike Olota across its various incarnations is the beating heart of the play. Smart, intelligent and accomplished, she confesses that “I was first at everything except men” and is reduced to a simpering, preening and insipid female whenever she sees a man who can “connect with her down there.”
The play is many ways, a catalogue of her bad choices and the effect it has not just on her but those around her. Dear Kaffy is in that sense a confessional and therapy session rolled into one with the audience as extended agony aunts.
It is also on another score the familiar story of contemporary Nigerian women who must balance career goals with societal expectations. Bolanle Austen Peters by using the vehicle of humour takes the sting out of a sad story but succeeds in holding up a mirror in which many of the women (and men) in her audience, could see their own reflections.
That is the tragedy and triumph of Dear Kaffy and the reason why it resonates so viscerally.
Cast
Uzor Osimkpa – Kike
Yewande Osamein – Tolani
Abiola Lepe – Bidemi
Banke Naya – Shalewa
Mike Afolarin – Femi
Akah Nnani – Tamuno
Dr. Lookman Sanusi – Dad
Toyin Abraham – Mum
(Dear Kaffy runs from 7-9 August 2026 at Shaw Theatre, London.)