Sharks, Streakers and Serious Comedy

On By ek.is.befok

Thursday was Comedy Festival. We managed to get centre front row seats for the danger zone (oh dear). Fortunately we did not get picked on too much; there were other more unfortunate souls who got that job 🙂 What we did have to endure before the show started was this terrible (c)rap set by DJ Azul. I’m not sure how the organisers read their target market, but very few of us were driving Toyota Corrolas’ with dropped suspensions and neon under lighting. The show kicked of with an intro by Australian Brendon Burns, who played the host for the evening.  First act was Martin Davis, who is an old favourite of mine. The years however seem to have caught up with him and with his current choice of hairstyle he and Iggy Pop could be brothers. Next up was South African John Vlismas. He was excellent and had a really good routine on affirmative action for sharks. Then there was Andrew Lawrence with a song about ripping people’s heads of in the library, which was entertaining, but the innocent shy boy act just didn’t do it for me.

I briefly ran into Martin during the break who scores a fat zero for fan appreciation. He shook my hand and shrugged me off with a “Sorry mate” and carried on walking.

From here on the show declined in enjoyment. The sound effects dude, Reggie Watts, was entertaining, but dull in the end. The Capetonian who replaced Mel Miller (his name long since forgotten), was the best of the second half. Come to think of it, it is rather lame that it was never announced that Mel was no longer in the show, and that new person who replaced him is not mentioned on the site. The last act, Jason Rouse, was crude and generally unfunny. He ended off the show by coming back onto the stage naked and terrorised one of our friends by giving him a hug, so I spanked him on the ass!

Overall I really enjoyed the show. What was very obvious is that South Africa can hold its own when it comes to stand up comedy. I would rate their acts much higher than any of the international performers.