A story will be told of a man who did a play to highlight his brother’s health condition. This one-man show will highlight the life of a man whose career is influenced by his brother’s impact and his perspective on his brother’s health condition throughout their lives; that man’s name will be Tobit Tom.
We know Tobit Tom, the man who graced our stages on Badassery, performed and charmed our hearts as Oti, charmed our hearts again as lover boy in the Showman Residency. Took our hearts and shattered them as Prince in Free Me. And again and again on our screens in local television series such as Tuki and Kito, among others. In the spirit of excellence in craft, Google describes him as an ‘award winning Kenyan actor, writer and director’ having won awards such as Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Play) at the 2026 Kenya Theatre Awards for Free Me.
This play, among other things, aims to raise funds for his brother’s treatment and raise awareness about living with Sickle Cell. The disease affects an estimated 249,000 people in Kenya, with approximately 14,000 children born with the condition each year. Being that it is a disease that requires lifelong care, it becomes a very expensive condition to live with, I’m talking about figures in the millions. And as you can imagine, that kind of money is not just lying around.
But when as Oti in Badassery, he told us ‘….Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it’, maybe he was in a way talking about himself.
In a bid to raise funds for his brother’s treatment, he sets up a one-man show which demands theatre’s most essential elements: storytelling, emotion, and connection.
Tobit’s mission, among other things, is to break down the condition’s effects to the bare bones to explain to us a condition that Google describes as “Sickle cell disease is a condition you’re born with that turns your normally round, flexible red blood cells into stiff, curved shapes.” Unlike maybe some of us, Tobit Tom can put a face to that description; that face is his brother’s Elvis Mumbo.
The show, Beyond the Memories, promises storytelling in an unorthodox pattern, heavily aligned with themes of family, hope, fear, and self-reflection. As the writer, actor, and director, Tobit Tom comes on stage and lays bare the bones of his relationship with his elder brother and this disease. The show will be staged on 1st and 2nd August (this weekend) at Braeburn Gitanga Road. Come, be there, and experience this story of brotherhood, told through the eyes of Tobit Tom.
Grab your tickets here
