This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

13th December 2009

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If I had a time machine, two people I’d want to put in the same room are Malcolm Terrey and Erasmus of Rotterdam. I think they’d have a lot to talk about.

Erasmus – a theologian and scholar, the most prominent Dutchman of the European Renaissance – is best known for his work, In Praise of Folly; Terrey, on the other hand, is associated with folly on stage (not only in the long running Jo’burg Follies series, but in farces, travesties, revues and light-hearted romps of all kinds).

The title of Erasmus’s encomium reflects an ambiguity that runs throughout the text: the speaking voice is Folly herself, and Folly praising folly should be absurd nonsense; yet Erasmus manages to criticise many of the religious institutions, political practices and public figures of his day. So silliness and seriousness of intent are fused – human folly is worthy of derision, but fooling around while doing the deriding is praiseworthy.

Likewise, in A Spoof Full of Sugar, which Terrey directs and for which he produced much of the script, moments of astute satire are never far from the over-the-top, the ridiculous and the inane. The show is a four-hander that tells the story (more or less) of an actress who fakes her own death to try and resuscitate an ailing career; but this loose plot is really just there to string together a series of musical sketches in which the cast take aim at those who populate South Africa’s ‘entertainment’ industry.

One of the targets of Terrey and company’s pot-shots is, of course, the musical genre itself – or, at least, the proliferation of musicals on South Africa’s stages – and there is a verbal virtuosity in many of the lyrics cleverly adapted from some famous stage musical numbers.

In two songs borrowed from Chicago, Pieter Bosch Botha depicts “Mr Instant Fame” (“Mr Cellophane”), exposing the pitiable but laughable desperation of perpetual reality TV-show contestants, while Brandon Auret and Ntsepa Pitjeng are two tannies bemoaning the dalliances of Joost van der Westhuizen and Steve Hofmeyr – as displayed on the pages of trashy magazines – in “The Tabloids Tango” (“The Cell Block Tango”).

Cats, Rent, The Sound of Music and various other favourites come in for some stick, but it seems it’s not the musicals themselves that are to blame so much as the performers and producers who insist on staging them year by year. Dianne Simpson’s “Barnyard Blues” is an hilarious lampoon of a certain theatre franchise where hay bales, alcohol and tribute shows meet – again and again and again. The ensemble number “Don’t do the Timewarp Again” is a plea to local theatres not to put on yet another version of The Rocky Horror Show.

The creative team behind Spoof Full of Sugar aren’t too proud to admit, however, that they are guilty of contributing to this trend (after all, work is hard to come by for most of those in show business and few would turn down the offer of a musical role).

Erasmus’s praise of folly did not prevent him from mocking himself as a pedant; similarly, Terrey inserts a camp parody of “Malcolm” into the show. Yet, while the cast demean themselves and their fellow thespians for being vain, petty, shamelessly self-promoting and always ready to compromise their artistic integrity, they also point out the universal dilemma of the out-of-work actor. Much of the show, in fact, is an ‘actor’s complaint’ – about having to do second-rate TV commercials, or perform for kids, or join the soap opera circuit (as members of the cast have done).

Spoof is also a complaint about the sheer mediocrity of so much that passes for local entertainment (Simpson’s take on Top Billing, or “Not Thrilling”, is a highlight in this regard). But it must be said that there are points at which the show itself tends towards the mediocre; Spoof contains more than a handful of tired puns, obvious gags, cheap sexual innuendos and facile topical references.

Moreover – while the lyrics are witty, and while the cast members each display both vocal skill and comic timing – too often the onstage energy dips, the scene changes aren’t sufficiently slick and the sound simply isn’t ‘big’ enough for a musical show (despite the enthusiasm of musical director Dawid Boverhoff on the keyboard).

Spoof does, nevertheless, offer some very funny sketches and bravely bursts a few celebrity bubbles – from easy targets like Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu to less risible figures like Barry Ronge (critics beware!). Just about the only person it treats with any piety is Evita Bezuidenhout. With a little more polish, it may well become the established stage phenomenon that producers Andrew Ross and Lyall Ramsden are hoping for ... in which case it, too, will be ripe for picking by other spoofers.

* A Spoof Full of Sugar is at the Old Mutual Theatre on the Square in Sandton until 31 December.