Bio
Jane Bussmann
Jane Bussmann is an award-winning British comedy writer and author who has written for South Park, the Emmy-winning Smack The Pony, The Fast Show and legendary satire show Brass Eye (Bussmann was 'Named and Shamed' in the News of the World newspaper as one of the writers behind the most complained-about program in British television history). She has worked on over fifty shows and developed pilots for NBC, HBO, the BBC, ITV, Granada and Channel4 among others.
Her comedy show Bussmann's Holiday was a four-star hit at the Edinburgh Festival with a subsequent sold-out London run at the Soho Theatre, going on to play in New York, Sydney and the Comedy Store (Los Angeles).
The show tells the unlikely story of how Bussmann grew so fed up with interviewing celebrities in Hollywood that she decided to try her hand at a nobler journalistic foray. She came up with a plan to go to Uganda to investigate someone she Googled as 'the most evil man in the world', Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony, wanted on charges of rape, murder and the kidnapping of ‘somewhere between’ 12-64,000 children.
This is a lie. Jane went to Uganda to impress John Prendergast, a very attractive American peace activist. When she arrived, for reasons too irritating to go into here, Jane was forced to actually investigate Kony.
She set out with no commission other than a travel feature. "A travel feature for the Mail on Sunday, Britain's somewhat politically right-of-centre family newspaper, inaugural headline, BLACK PEOPLE - WHOSE FAULT ARE THEY? What I really wanted was to write a serious piece about 20,000 kidnapped children and a peacemaker, and the only way I could achieve this in Britain's current media climate was by sending Mail on Sunday readers on holiday to a war zone. A war zone full of black people.'
The resulting show shone new light on an appalling war crime. Bussmann's Holiday became the book The Worst Date Ever. Jane is currently adapting it as a screenplay for Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim producers Big Talk with Slumdog Millionaire producers Film4.
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- Uganda
Country, eastern Africa. Area: 93,263 sq mi (241,551 sq km). Population (2009 est.): 32,710,000. Capital: Kampala. Uganda is home to dozens of African ethnic groups, as well as a small Asian community. Languages: English (official), Swahili. Religions: Christianity (mostly Roman Catholic; also Protestant); also Islam, traditional beliefs. Currency: Uganda shilling. A landlocked country on the Equator, Uganda is largely situated on a plateau, with volcanic mountains edging its eastern and western borders; Margherita Peak, at 16,795 ft (5,119 m), is the highest mountain. Part of Lake Victoria occupies virtually all of southeastern Uganda; other major lakes are Lakes Albert, Kyoga, Edward, George, and Bisina. The Nile River traverses the country. Huge tracts of land are devoted to national parks and game reserves. The economy is based largely on agriculture and food processing. Livestock raising and fishing are also important, and there is some manufacturing and mining. Uganda is a multiparty republic with one legislative house; its head of state and government is the president, assisted by the prime minister. By the 19th century the region was divided into several separate local kingdoms inhabited by various Bantu- and Nilotic-speaking peoples. Arab traders reached the area in the 1840s. The kingdom of Buganda was visited by the first European explorers in 1862. Protestant and Catholic missionaries arrived in the 1870s, and the development of religious factions led to persecution and civil strife. In 1894 Buganda was formally proclaimed a British protectorate. As Uganda, it gained independence in 1962, and in 1967 it adopted a republican constitution. The civilian government was overthrown in 1971 and replaced by a military regime under Idi Amin. His invasion of Tanzania in 1978 resulted in the collapse of his regime. The civilian government was again deposed by the military in 1985, but the military government was in turn overthrown in 1986. A constituent assembly enacted a new constitution in 1995.
- Uganda on britannica.com
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