Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, actress, journalist, educationist, social commentator, motivational speaker and dancer. turned 80 on the 3rd of February 2021
Born in Lagos in 1941, she attended Mount Carmel Convent School and Methodist Girls High School.l before proceeding to UK to major in Business Administration and Cosmetology.
She later studied Acting at the famous Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her acting career took when she featured in Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Lion and the Jewel’. A broadcaster and presenter with the BBC magazine programme, ‘Calling Nigeria, she was also a regular on the highly successful children's programme, Play Away
She has also made various appearances in leading Theatre and TV productions such as the Traverse Theatre at the Edinburgh International Festival; the Gaiety Theatre at the Dublin International Theatre Festival; The Bristol Old Vic; The Hampstead Theatre; the Almeida Theatre in the Almeida Opera’s & Streetwise production, Critical Mass, directed by Emma Bernard and Composer Orlando Gough; the Sir John Mills’ Theatre Ipswich, in Janice Okoh’s Egusi Soup; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser; The Royal Court Theatre; The Palace Theatre, Westcliffe; and The Mercury Theatre, Colchester; the BBC (TV & Radio Drama), ATV, Granada TV, COI, ILEA and Thames Television. She had a film appearance, A WARM DECEMBER starring and directed by iconic Oscar winner, Sidney Poitier.
In Nigeria she made her mark in J P Clark’s Song of a Goat; Wale Ogunyemi’s The Divorce; Fred Agbeyegbe’s The King Must Dance Naked; Wole Oguntokun’s The Inheritors; Arnold Weskers’ Shylock; Laolu Ogunniyi’s TV Series, Winds Against My Soul; Jab Adu’s The Young Ones; and Nigerian Television Authority’s The Honourable; For Better for Worse, Eyo Fancy and Rasheed Gbadamosi’s The Mansion.She has also acted in numerous Nollywood films
As a journalist, she was the pioneer Editor of the African Woman magazine.
A recipient of numerous awards that includes an OON award in 2006 (Officer of the Order of the Niger), the veteran actress has been inducted as a Fellow of the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists(SONTA).
ScreenNolly celebrates this Octogenarian that has excelled in all fields of the Performing Arts
SOURCE: Bimbola Babarinde /The Nigeria Nostalgia