Saro Prieto
Santa Cruz de Tenerife (EFE).- Manolo Vieira, who died this Wednesday at the age of 73, was a master of that type of humor that provokes easy laughter, which does not go beyond what he wants to tell, because his traditional stories were, with all its exaggerations, the reflection of the daily life of any canary.
It began more than four decades ago and although he also worked on the peninsula in the mythical Florida Park and in Miami (USA), his great audience was on the islands and few artists have had the recognition that Manolo Vieira has received throughout the Canary Islands.
It didn’t matter which island he performed on, it always sold out, because his audience felt identified with those little stories he told and that he managed to turn into real comedy episodes.
It was said that his humor “only we canaries understand it” and although this statement is somewhat right, Manolo Vieira also managed to adapt this script to his audience and to the times and thus his best-known characters grew.
His anecdotes of that bus to the brim going up Escaleritas avenue, the supermarket cart that squeaks or the car that gets lost in a large parking lot were common stories but totally identifiable by the public who did not stop laughing in all their shows.
Carmelito and Maruquita, Cuco, Fela and Chanín were some of his characters and although some of them were always with him, he adapted them. Still they kept their essence.
Vieira always defended that knowing the past was the best way to know the future.
At the end of 2022, he announced that he was saying goodbye to the stage with a tour of his show “La última y nos vamos” that began in the mythical room “Chistera”, where he made his fans laugh so many times and paved the way for other comedians from the Canary Islands. .
That is why today, among the condolences for his death, are those of the young comedians who considered him a teacher and the highest representative of island humor.