One Non-Blonde: An interview with Ninia Benjamin

Opening Act

Before starting stand-up comedy in the late 1990s, Ninia Benjamin’s childhood dreams were to become an actress. Performing regularly at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, Ninia had long stints in Women on Top and Waiting to Exhale. While acting was her main dream the jobs weren’t always there. However, being inspired by the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Roseanne Barr, actors who all started their careers as stand-up comedians, Ninia saw the path of stand-up as something she could also do. 

A natural performer from a young age, Ninia always wanted to entertain her class and she grew up loving school for that reason. Whilst she didn’t come from a creative or artistic family, for Ninia this was not isolating or going to hold her back. She knew her dreams of becoming a performer coming true were only a matter of time.

No Business Like Show Business 

Starting off doing sketches with Geoff Schumann was Ninia’s early experience of comedy. After being made redundant, she fully dived into pursuing stand-up. However, the transition from the theatre to comedy was a big change. Now having to ‘perform’ as a comedian, the pressure to look, act and present herself a certain way was prominent early on in her career.

However, Ninia quickly realised this wasn’t her style and after meeting with Angie Le Mar, who told Ninia that the most important thing she had to do was ‘talk her truth’,  she quickly changed her act and became the Ninia we know today.

In True Ninia Benjamin Style…

Ninia’s look and brand of comedy has effortlessly evolved and changed throughout her career, and she has done this by keeping the one thing she knows how to talk about best and make funny front and centre, i.e. herself. Not tied to a set performance or script – anything from her journey to the venue, her experience on the tube, to the fight of having to get the last size 22 in Primark – Ninia’s comedy is always relevant, relatable and fun.

Ninia’s act is about letting the audience in her head and having a good time with her along the way.

Quincy The Comedian and the Legends of Comedy © Quincy The Comedian

Even though Stratford’s comedic landscape has changed and become more mixed, Ninia still sees it as one of the central places in London to start a comedy career. She recognises Quincy’s role in this with his frequent gigs that she couldn’t have dreamed about 15 years ago.

After only a couple years in the stand-up comedy scene, she soon found her career propelled into national and international status as she became one part of an iconic trio.

THREE NON-BLONDES

Ninia was discovered by a TV Producer who would select her, alongside Jocelyn Jee Esien and Tameka Empson, to become the 3 Non-Blondes (BBC, 2003). A first of its kind for UK television, it had three Black female comedians as the leads, creating their own content and making their own rules.

3 Non-Blondes © British Comedy Guide

Their sketches featured them out on the streets dressed as tampons, pretending to be the African Royalty (e.g. The Queen of SwaziLand), singing like a barbershop quartet around town, Baywatch reenactments and so many more iconic moments. It gained such a cult following that 20 years later, it has landed on Netflix. Ultimately, 3 Non Blondes raised the bar and expectation of what Black talent are capable of doing on television.

The Show Goes On…

Ninia’s success continued on the small screen and appearing on stage to large audiences, something she expressed she would have loved her dad to see. But for Ninia, the peak of her career so far, was getting to work with Will Smith on the 2019 Disney live-action remake of Aladdin, as a writer, after he saw her work.

Ninia’s career and comedy has taken her around the world and through a lot but decades later, she is still realising that the best way to work is to have fun. As a comedian, she knows her audience very well, and any difficulties she has taken in her stride and with confidence, so this is a message she encourages others to live by as well.

See highlights of the full interview below.

Click here for the full video. 

Find Ninia Benjamin on her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.