Bøger af Philip Begho

"Smallie" is a one-act play featuring three characters. When an eight-year-old girl with a sharp mind is locked in the body of a sixteen-year-old, and has parents with dodgy moral inclinations who have made a pact to answer all their daughter's questions, what do we get? We get Smallie! Absurd, witty and funny! And very, very telling...

"Smallie 8: Two-Way Street" is a one-act play featuring the three characters in the Smallie Series. In this episode, the question arises whether attitude to work is a two-way street, requiring changes not just from workers but also from employers. When Smallie joins in the debate, sparks and fireworks fly! Can it be otherwise? Smallie is an eight-year-old girl locked in the body of a sixteen-year-old. Her mind is sharp, but her language skills are ridiculously poor. What is more, her parents have dodgy moral inclinations, but Smallie is as straight as an arrow. Any surprise then about the sparks and fireworks? Absurd, witty and funny! And very, very telling...

In this delightful one-act play, hard work is set against the enterprising spirit to determine the more desirable quality. But as Ken and Tam spar, we see that not everything in this two-hander is as it appears to be.

The Queen of Forever Land is worried when her son, Prince Gallant, sets out in search of his dream princess. She knows there are many dangers a young prince might face away from home. But she could never have imagined the terrors Prince Gallant would encounter! What shocks come the Prince's way! What toe-shrinking shocks!

A series of events sink their teeth into Blackie, and she finds herself in Italy where she must work as a sex slave in the furnace of pain. But she is a Nigerian and is resilient and wily, and so out of the fire and pain emerges Cobra Girl - lethal, and hissing for revenge!

The streets are aboil with youths on the rampage, divided along ethnic lines. The thunder of death and destruction rumbles. Only one man, they say, can bring peace. He is called Snake. Can it be true? Can anything good come out of a snake? Or is it all a myth? They call him Snake...

15-year-old Itohan is a strikingly tall and beautiful Bini maiden. She is as strong as an ox and has superior fighting skills. When she is rejected from Princess Uyi's leopard army for indiscipline, she forms the Young Amazons - an elite fighting squad of five maidens. What thrills the girls have as they go to foil a virgin sacrifice!

Misan and Etemi find themselves on the savage streets of Lagos hawking pure-water and oranges. They experience the horrors of the hawking madness. Or is it not madness? Have the children not gone mad? Surprises await!

"Smallie 6: The Sandwich" is a one-act play featuring the three characters of the Smallie Series. In this episode, trouble erupts when Smallie's mother comments on the resemblance of a neighbor to a club sandwich. Smallie steps in. Was there trouble before? Now sparks and fireworks fly! Can it be otherwise? Smallie is an eight-year-old girl locked in the body of a sixteen-year-old. Her mind is sharp, but her language skills are ridiculously poor. What is more, her parents have dodgy moral inclinations, but Smallie is as straight as an arrow. Any surprise then about the sparks and fireworks? Absurd, witty and funny! And very, very telling...

"Beware the curse of Leviticus! Enter this territory at your peril!" So might the sign have read that doubtless overhung the forbidden field sprawling before Bose and Bayo. But Bose and Bayo are teenagers, and are given, like teenagers, to wayward fancies that froth with poison, sweet and seducing. Will the two defeat the sting of poison country and survive sin's claims, and go on to find the lush meadows of adulthood?

City Yooglay is such an ugly place that anyone would be forgiven to steer clear of it. But Prince Gallant is truly gallant, and he delays his search for his dream princess so that he can help the Yooglians. Is his kindness rewarded? It sure is! The most extraordinary delights come the Prince's way!

Sinister balls of fire start appearing in the kingdom of Manak and people mysteriously begin to vanish. When the heir to the throne, the handsome Prince Tak, falls victim to the horror, the land shrieks with panic and the kingdom seems doomed. Then Barbie, a lowly laundry-hand, arises and dares the flames. Her courage restores everything and Barbie wins for herself what no one in her humble position would ever have thought possible!

"Not everything is what we think it is," Lady Strange tells the newsmen at Mero's Bar. They know she is about to launch into a spellbinding story and they are all ears. But the lady has something more than a story for them. That's why she is Lady Strange...

Funke's grandmother was robbed of further education by teenage pregnancy and she is desperate to prevent the same thing from happening to Funke. But surely there is no chance of it happening since the only boy who has caught Funke's attention is gentleman Jude, the born-again boy? Or is gentleman Jude not what he appears to be?

Poor pregnant Egha is the victim of a repugnant tradition in an age when society idolizes culture. Persecution snarls all around. Is she doomed? But all is not what it seems.

Toju and Tosan, two seven-year-old friends, are able to travel through time, using the time caps Toju's scientist father invented. In this episode, they decide to visit Ajayi Crowther, the slave boy destined for greatness - and what an adventure they have!

Two mischievous chiefs scheme to overthrow a wise and good king. In the rib-cracking plot are the fifty singing children of one of the chiefs, his fifteen quarrelsome wives and his shoulder-climbing pet monkey. But are these any help against the wisdom of the king? Only the sea and tides can tell...

Stan, a hired driver with a university degree, argues that bigotry may be found not only in regard to skin colour or place of origin, but also in regard to economic class. And it retains its potency to destroy its vessel. How true Oga Sir and Oga Madam find this to be!

"Jelly Baby" is a children's novel set around a little wisp of a boy barely the size of the AK47 each child must bear in a camp for boy soldiers during Sierra Leone's civil war. The book's impact on a journalist and critic elicited a call for it to be on the school desk of every child in the world.

Evil machinations in the king's palace send the Prince away, and send Barbie, an innocent kitchen hand, to the sun-drenched fields to suffer like a slave. Can this be a blessing in disguise? Barbie's kind-heartedness paves a way for her back to the palace. But can it do the same for the runaway Prince?

"Titi Rella" is a rib-cracking children's play inspired by Cinderella, which takes us on an adventure from rags to riches, showing that the impossible is really only something waiting to happen - if we but lift our hearts to God.

Aunt Kemi believes that nine-year-old Yemisi and six-year-old Bolu are better off hawking on the streets as traffic jam kids than being in school. But Yemisi devises an unusual way of educating herself and her brother - and the tables are turned on Aunt Kemi.

This novella gives a glimpse of some of the difficulties facing the full-time creative writer. Wolves snarl on all sides of Jolomi, and there is only one friend in sight - but he turns out to be the most ferocious wolf of all.

"Tulip of the Nile" is a highly inspired collection of poems by an author who sets much store by excellent craftsmanship. So we have poetry here giving us meaning we can relate with - meaning dressed in robes of exquisite beauty.

"Nebuchadnezzar" is a play inspired by the biblical account of King Nebuchadnezzar when he is exiled for seven years to the world of grass-eating beasts of the open fields. What does the ox or ass see and hear among the grasses? What Nebuchadnezzar sees and hears, at the point of his restoration, are enough to make us laugh to tears.

Nine-year-old Junior Nelson experiences pain and shock when he sees what he shouldn't see. His travails deepen when the grown-ups in his world do not believe his story. Should he now tell a lie to please society and keep his family from unraveling? Junior's confusion is unabated as he watches truth and disbelief wrestle in mortal combat. This book won the 2003 ANA/MATATU Prize for Children's Literature.

Froggy is the school's best-loved clown - and Aunty Felicia dares kidnap him to get at Junior! Does Junior stay idle when this happens? For help, does he look to Froggy's parents who are waiting for the police, who in turn are waiting for a ransom phone call Junior knows will never come? What a shock awaits Aunty Felicia when Junior whips his classmates into bold and marvelous action!

"Joseph" is a play inspired by the biblical account of Joseph son of Jacob when he wakes a prisoner in a dungeon but will sleep at night a Prime Minister. While being entertained by song and dance and the funny antics of gargantuan puppet heads in this play, we are incisively reminded of God's power to produce stunning reversals in the affairs of men and nations. And of course, we re-learn that most wonderful and desperately needed lesson of forgiveness.

Mofe scoffs at the idea that his obsession with the female hair could be used by unseen enemies to ensnare him. Then he meets Syreeta - and nothing is as it once was! And at such great cost!

"Smallie 11: The NEPA Statue" is a one-act play featuring the three characters in the Smallie Series. In this episode, the question arises whether the statue prefacing the electricity headquarters is an idol responsible for the nation's comatose power supply state. Smallie bares her mind on the issue to her parents and - sparks and fireworks fly! Can it be otherwise? Smallie is an eight-year-old girl locked in the body of a sixteen-year-old. Her mind is sharp, but her language skills are ridiculously poor. What is more, her parents have dodgy moral inclinations, but Smallie is as straight as an arrow. Any surprise then about the sparks and fireworks? Absurd, witty and funny! And very, very telling...