This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

22nd September 2007

View online here

The inaugural South African Comedy Awards ceremony was held at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town on Monday night. That such an event exists at all is evidence of the high profile attained by comic performers in the national public view – in fact, as veteran comedians such as Joe Mafela have argued, the establishment of the awards is long overdue.

British funnyman Steve Best set the tone for the evening with a balloon-eating, guitar-playing, self-mocking routine. This was followed by the hilarious antics of the bumbling, “bilingual” John van der Walt (aka Alan Committie). Loyiso Gola – later named as Best Breakthrough Act – launched his politically incorrect brand of humour at the audience and then concluded: “It’s difficult to discipline kids in Gugulethu; you can’t say ‘Go to your room’, because there is only one room!” Imo Adams brought shrieks of laughter with his Bollywood song-and-dance extravaganza, disproving his own claims that he’s coloured and not Indian. Nick Rabinowitz was a hit with his Xhosa rugby commentary and his insights into what contestants would say if Survivor South Africa was an honest reality show: “Is jy f**ken mal? Ek gaan nie met krokodille swem nie. Immunity se g*t!’

The small matter of announcing the winners and handing over the awards was interspersed in between all of this. Some of the celebrity presenters turned their envelope-opening responsibilities into comic sketches in their own right – what else could we expect from the irrepressible Corné (Louw Venter) and the repressed Twakkie (Rob van Vuuren) from The Most Amazing Show, or the bone-dry wit of Kasper de Vries? Other big names on the list of those handing out awards included Jeannie D, DJ Fresh, Paul Slabolepszy, Fiona Coyne, Barrie Hilton, Kerry McGregor, David Kibuuka and Joey Rasdien (most recently of Bunny Chow fame) and Joe Barber duo David Isaacs and Oscar Peterson.

Sitcom Stokvel cleaned up in the first two categories: Best SA Television Performance (Tshamano Sebe as “Biza”) and Best SA Television Comedy. The team from The Jupiter Drawing Room advertising agency won Outstanding Funny TV Commercial for their clever punt for Little Britain DVD sales at Musica. As for stage performance, Lindiwe Matshikiza was a deserving winner of Best One Person Show for her virtuoso performance in Mike van Graan’s Bafana Republic, while Shirley, Goodness and Mercy (adapted from Chris van Wyk’s novel and directed by Janice Honeyman) was recognised as Best Comedic Play.

The acceptance speeches contained much thanking of mothers, colleagues and industry players. A notable exception was the irreverent trio belted out by the buxom, Afro-headed ladies from Three Tons of Fun on behalf of John Vlismas (Best Stand Up of the Year), who was unable to attend. The wordsmiths and visual artists held their own amongst the one-liner specialists. Marianne Tham, handling the rather phallic trophy after she had been announced as Outstanding Humorous Columnist, wondered aloud where she could “plug this thing in”. Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) suggested that the funniest thing he could think of doing in accepting the accolade of Outstanding Humorous Columnist was drawing “a cartoon of Mohammed” ... an offer he rapidly withdrew.

Most audience members were a little baffled by the category of Outstanding International Comedy, which was given to Borat. Indeed, energy levels in the auditorium waxed and waned throughout the evening – a function, no doubt, of the pauses, cuts and other exigencies of recording the event “live to tape”. It will be broadcast on SABC2 on the 6th October at 8:00pm.

The warmest applause of the evening (a standing ovation) was reserved for Pieter-Dirk Uys, who was given special acknowledgement for Outstanding Achievement. Uys reminded his fellow comedians and satirists that humour is “a weapon of mass distraction ... once you get people to laugh, you can rip their broeks down and show the world what they’re hiding underneath.”