Obama musical hits Kenyan stages in election run-up

Nov 3, 2008, 8:28 GMT

Nairobi - US presidential election favourite Barack Obama's life is being depicted in musical form in his ancestral homeland Kenya in the last days before the US election.

Obama the Musical opened Sunday at the Kenyan National Theatre in Nairobi on Sunday and will run until Wednesday.

The performance uses a mixture of song, dance and narration to follow the senator's life so far.

'I want to use the show not only to tell Obama's story but also to unite Kenyans,' George Orido, the playwright and director of the musical, told The Daily Nation.

The show opened Sunday to a rapturous reception from Kenyans, although some a dpa correspondent who saw they show likened it to 'puppet theatre.'

The opening performance on Sunday ended with the crowd singing along to 'Obama be thy name,' a reggae number by Kenyan artist Makadem.

Senator Obama, whose late father was Kenyan, is considered a hero in the East African nation.

His grandmother Sarah Obama still lives there in the tiny village of Kogelo, western Kenya.

Cheering supporters mobbed the route he took during his last visit to Kenya in 2006, and a recent BBC poll found that support for him there stood at more than 80 per cent.

Obama fever has swept the nation in the days running up to the election and huge crowds are expected in the town of Kisumu, near Kogelo, where the BBC's Swahili service is from Monday night transmitting coverage of the elections on a big screen.