As it seems traditional, David Kau started the show with a census of the audience (of a sold out show, of over 4000); including a request for all Chechens with backpacks to leave the room. Apart from recent events, South African politics was a major theme from all the comedians on the bill, with Zuma, Zille and Gwede Mantashe being popular targets. And as ever, David Kau was brilliant as a host and MC - and his own routines were sometimes far better than the featured comedians!
The show started with KG, from Cape Town - who played on the link between his name and his large size. Apart from the seemingly mandatory fat jokes, his best jokes revolved around the issue of struggle credentials - how is it, he asked, that there seems to be only so few people with struggle credentials; as every one with a tender seems to have struggle credentials, but not the other way round. It was a sobering reflection on corruption, a topic that was mostly left out from the other comedian's repertoire. The equally large, Jason Goliath (another person, who played on the link between his (real) name and his size), was up next. He has an amazing, preacher/motivational speaker style delivery. He largely stayed off politics, but rather told stories with humourous twists - like how, he, a big fat guy, won a tennis tournament in school - as well as some amazing interpretations of a scene from Taken 2 (with corresponding accents).
The two feature performers were on either side of the break - starting with Marc Lottering. Unlike Jason Goliath's large booming voice, Mark's was softer, but still delivered in a preacher style. There was quite a few jokes around social media (on Twitter and Facebook) and a cut out to an audience member who was taking a photo on her cell phone, while Marc was talking about how every action was now being photographed and uploaded to Facebook and Twitter was particularly ironic.
The standout performance of the evening was ventriloquist Conrad Koch and his puppet Chester Missing - a blistering political analysis and commentary across the spectrum. It was the act that brought out the biggest laughs, and pushed some big boundaries. I have seen a few skits on Late Night News (on e-TV), but a live show is so much more impressive. There have been a few well known ventriloquists (Jeff Dunham comes to mind), and I think a full show of just Chester Missing's political analysis would be just as impressive.
Dylan Oliphant, a recent winner of best newcomer, delivered one liners in the style of Jimmy Carr - pushing undiscovered boundaries, and sometimes the jokes took a while to decipher for many in the audience. He doesn't yet command the stage to the same degree - but this is a performer who can easily become the next big thing. Issac Gambu finished of the evening, in a performance mainly in Zulu and Xhosa (and thus I didn't understand most of it).
At over 3 hours (including the interval), it is a show that does bring great value for money; and features excellent performances. Sandton Convention Centre is a central venue - although the bar service is slow and leaving the venue itself is quite congested.
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